| Monday, 10 June 2002 | NSWCCL media release: 7/2002 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
| The NSW Council for Civil Liberties today expressed its cynicism at a State Government decision to drop plans for a South Coast prison. Council president, Mr Cameron Murphy, said: "Family members of prisoners will have to continue to travel to Sydney and Bathurst to see loved ones." "If the community in Sussex Inlet and Huskisson want tougher sentences for violent criminals, they should be prepared to shoulder the responsibility of a jail on the South Coast." "You can't just keep locking up people and expect that they should be imprisoned somewhere else." Mr Murphy attacke the record number of inmates in NSW and said he was disgusted that the prison population is expected to top 9,000 in three years. "Bob Carr's new Bail laws passed by State Parliament will only add more prisoners to the system." "The South Coast must face facts - if you lock up prisoners, you have to put them somewhere...then why not, Huskisson, Sussex Inlet, St Georges Basin or Ulladulla?" "I would rather see rehabilitation and preventative programs in place instead of new jails being built. It is a far better approach to stop crime in the first place, than to be building more and more expensive jails." "The decision to drop the South Coast prison was knee jerk response to a local Labor MP, Wayne Smith, running directly to the Premier and the Jails Minister." "Mr Smith can't have it both ways - he supports tougher penalties and longer jail sentences but doesn't want prisoners jailed in his backyard." "Wayne Smith has put parochial interests over the interests of human rights." For further information contact: Cameron Murphy, NSWCCL President 0411 769 769 |
|||||||
Do you like this page?
