Aug 26, 2026 · 12 min · 9 segments
Karen Fletcher joined *Green Left Radio* on August 21 to discuss the Victorian government's proposed bill that denies prisoners the human right to at least one hour of daylight per day. We…
Within the left, when it comes to this whole question of prisoner rights, I think fundamentally we have to support the right that regardless of what crime you may have committed, people actually have the right to be treated with respect and dignity.
It's actually quite sickening that when it comes to the prison industrial complex, that they're actually trying to think of ingenious ways to actually treat prisoners worse, like as if that would do anything, like as if what it means is that the people who become imprisoned end up becoming worse people when they come out of prison.
And I just think that is actually an injustice in a lot of ways.
And I guess I want to kind of end with, because we're running a bit out of time now, Karen, if you have any kind of final comments, but also talk about some of the demands that the different human rights organisations, including Flat Out Inc and community organisations, are making in response to some of the Victorian state government's proposals around all this.
A lot of people are convinced by politicians' arguments that the prisons are full of dangerous people who've committed extremely serious offences, violent offences against other people.
And there are a small number of people like that in the prison system, but there are thousands and thousands of people who are basically there for crimes of survival because of mental health, family violence, abuse as a child, in particular, use of alcohol and other drugs, and in particular, targeted populations like Aboriginal populations.
This was the churn of the thousands and thousands of people who are going through the prison system.
And the big lie that politicians tell is that they're protecting people from the dangerous members of the community.
And you can see that with this bill, the way that the politicians talk about it.
Even though it's going to be impacting on the most vulnerable, the language they use is, oh, we're protecting you against a very dangerous cohort.
And the organisations that we're working with, like the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Human Rights Law Centre, Deseret Social Services, Law and Advocacy Centre for Women, Fitzroy Legal Service, you know, we've got a big coalition of groups who are doing our best.
to raise the truth of what happens in the criminal legal system rather than the stories that are told by politicians at election time.
Within the left, when it comes to this whole question of prisoner rights, I think fundamentally we have to support the right that regardless of what crime you may have committed, people actually have the right to be treated with respect and dignity.
It's actually quite sickening that when it comes to the prison industrial complex, that they're actually trying to think of ingenious ways to actually treat prisoners worse, like as if that would do anything, like as if what it means is that the people who become imprisoned end up becoming worse people when they come out of prison.
And I just think that is actually an injustice in a lot of ways.
And I guess I want to kind of end with, because we're running a bit out of time now, Karen, if you have any kind of final comments, but also talk about some of the demands that the different human rights organisations, including Flat Out Inc and community organisations, are making in response to some of the Victorian state government's proposals around all this.
A lot of people are convinced by politicians' arguments that the prisons are full of dangerous people who've committed extremely serious offences, violent offences against other people.
And there are a small number of people like that in the prison system, but there are thousands and thousands of people who are basically there for crimes of survival because of mental health, family violence, abuse as a child, in particular, use of alcohol and other drugs, and in particular, targeted populations like Aboriginal populations.
This was the churn of the thousands and thousands of people who are going through the prison system.
And the big lie that politicians tell is that they're protecting people from the dangerous members of the community.
And you can see that with this bill, the way that the politicians talk about it.
Even though it's going to be impacting on the most vulnerable, the language they use is, oh, we're protecting you against a very dangerous cohort.
And the organisations that we're working with, like the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Human Rights Law Centre, Deseret Social Services, Law and Advocacy Centre for Women, Fitzroy Legal Service, you know, we've got a big coalition of groups who are doing our best.
to raise the truth of what happens in the criminal legal system rather than the stories that are told by politicians at election time.
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