Gerry Georgatos
If you want to know the hearts and minds of a nation, of its consciousness, of its legislators, then day and night look into our prisons.

The two century old modern day prison experiment is failing, that is if we look at the spiralling incarceration rates, adult and youth, and if we look at re-offending rates, the recidivism.

My PhD research argues that people who enter the prison experience, who are incarcerated for relatively short or long terms leave the prison experience worse than they came in.

Gerry Georgatos
Australia-wide Aboriginal organisations, communities and rights advocates are more than just apprehensive of the consolidated push by State and Territory governments for the introduction of Criminal Association Control Bills better known as anti-association laws – in Western Australia, the Criminal Organisation Bill 2012 appears that it will be passed and within days.

A steady and swelling inflow of racist and otherwise abusive comment to this site has prompted us to take protective action. We had to choose between keeping the site open and quickly responsive, at the risk of being overwhelmed by the abusers, or putting up some barriers that might slightly inconvenience the visitors who do the right thing.

We, the editorial collective, the small group of people who run this site, have opted to put in some restrictions.Just as we do with articles, we now look at comments before we allow them to appear or bin them.

"You do not honor the dead through mindless flag waving, rewriting history or promoting new wars," said Hamish Chitts, East Timor veteran and spokesperson for Stand Fast -- a group of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.