Prison Reform

4WardEver UK

The crisis of Aboriginal women held in prison in Australia

Domiciliary Prisonsource: Aljazeera News
published: 2 December 2019

Melbourne, Australia – Vickie Roach was 12 the first time she was imprisoned.

Forty-eight years ago, in the early 1970s, she was arrested after running away from abusive foster homes and institutions.

“The morning after you arrive, you have to go see the doctor. They would examine you to see if you were pregnant or had STDs. And if you weren’t cooperative they would hold you down and do it,” said Roach, now 60.

For a young girl who had been sexually abused, this procedure was “traumatic”. But her contact with the criminal justice system in Australia began even earlier – when she was two. 

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4WardEver UK

Film-making pair team up to tell British woman’s story [Ruth Ellis]

Ruth Ellis
Ruth Ellis

source: Rome Sentinel
published: 9 November 2019

She was the last woman hanged in Great Britain after being convicted of shooting her lover to death. And a director/producer in Los Angeles, originally from Rome, and a cameraman/videographer from Barneveld, are teaming up to tell her story.

Peter-Henry Schroeder, owner and operator of PHS Productions, owes his acting roots to his mother Marie Angotti-Schroeder, who while living in Syracuse, enrolled her sons and daughter in the Syracuse Children’s Theatre, which continues today.

While his two brothers pursued other avenues, Peter-Henry and sister Maria Curley, continued with their passions for the performing arts. Curley is the co-founder of Present Company Productions, an Oneida-based theater company that produces, among its projects, dinner theater at Theodore’s Restaurant in Canastota.

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4WardEver UK

Ageing prison population ‘sees officers [increasingly] working as carers’

Prison Barssource: BBC News
published: 22 October 2019

The ageing jail population has left prison officers providing care for a growing number of older inmates “dying in front of them”, officers have said.

The warning from the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has come as new figures revealed the oldest prisoner in England and Wales was 104 years old.

The data showed there were 13,617 inmates aged above 50 out of a prison population of 82,710 in June 2019. The Prison Service said it was working to meet the needs of elderly prisoners. More and more inmates were frail, incontinent or had dementia, the POA said.

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