Like many countries, Australia calls the governmental departments in charge of its prisons “Corrective” or “Correctional” services. Also like other countries, this framing of their purpose, the idea of prison being a place where men and women are reformed (“corrected”) for a successful reintroduction into society, is a bad joke everyone is in on. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than half of the people in prison have been imprisoned before. Clearly it’s not working.
