The Third Prerequisite: Shift the Focus of Imprisonment to the Goal of Rehabilitation and Restoration

Abstract

International human rights law requires the goal of the prison system to be ‘rehabilitation and social reformation’. The full wording of art 10(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is, ‘[t]he penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation’ (emphasis added).1 This obligation poses three problems, all of which need to be addressed if Australia is to comply with this requirement.