"The basic prison setting is not conducive to the acquisition of
social skills and to the learning of adaptive behaviour appropriate to resuming life as a
responsible member of the general community. The experience of incarceration can be
extremely stressful and humiliating, not the most ideal setting for developing
self-esteem. In the custodial setting, violent offenders are exposed to few appropriate role
models. Indeed, for well over a century, prisons have been referred to as 'schools of
crime'.
With few exceptions, Australian correctional agencies do not
provide specific programs for inmates convicted of crimes of violence. Nor do community
welfare agencies. Many of the more general programs do address the needs of violent
offenders, however.
Whether these programs are sufficient in quality and scope to
meet the needs of all violent prisoners is a key question. To the extent that they are
not, this probably reflects less on the competence and innovativeness of prison
administrators than it does upon the political climate and the severe cost constraints under
which they labour. Annual reports of Australian corrections departments are as likely to
boast of reductions in the costs of meals for prisoners and of a decline in the number of
escape incidents as they are to herald new programs for prisoner rehabilitation.
Australian prisons have been criticised for insufficient vocational, educational, life
skills training,
and for inadequate drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs (Australian
Law Reform Commission 1988, p. 26)."