Australian Human Rights Commission Current issues and good practices in prison management, 16 November 2023 2 Adult custodial corrections system 5. In December 2022 the Cultural Review of the Adult Custodial Corrections System (Victoria) reported that: While much has changed in corrections environments in the last few decades, they remain, in part, places that are influenced by a punitive orientation and that can be devastatingly unsafe both for the staff who work there and the people in custody who live there.2 6. The Commission supports this observation, adding that it is equally applicable in all other Australian jurisdictions. As previously noted in the Commission’s Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices) Report: Prisons impose rigid rules and absolute obedience enforced by authority figures; allow only controlled and supervised access to family, services and support networks; and create environments in which criticism and belittling of prisoners is normalised.3 2.1 High numbers of incarceration Unsentenced Prisoners (March Quarter 2022 - March Quarter 2023) 16500 16000 15500 15000 14500 14000 March Quarter 2022 June Quarter 2022 September Quarter December Quarter March Quarter 2023 2022 2022 Average Number of Unsentenced Prisoners 4 7. The Commission is concerned about the high numbers of people incarcerated in Australian prisons overall and, in particular, unsentenced prisoners. In the first quarter of 2023, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported there were 41,833 persons in custody, up 2% from the final quarter of 2022.5 The rate of 3