Locked up without a trial

"Depending on the time of the day they will then be sent to a remand facility. These facilities are horrendous, with full strip searches, three men to large concrete cells, free standing toilets in full view, 24-hour lights on, thinnest mattresses on concrete slabs, atrocious food and no entertainment of any sort."

The cells were like "hosed-out dog kennels", an ex-remand prisoner told me, describing the damp, freezing cells.

Last December I spent hour after hour trying to get through to Parklea private prison, trying to confirm they had a Chinese PhD student locked up there – I wrote about his story here. The phone was simply never answered, there was no response to the online system for trying to contact prisoners. "That's par for the course," his criminal lawyer told me. "These places have no interest in facilitating contact for prisoners with friends or family. Contact with the outside is heavily restricted, calls are absurdly expensive. Inmates are routinely moved to locations hundreds of kilometres from their families – and from legal support."

Imprisoned men simply disappear into the system, and it can be a mighty task even for their lawyers to find out where they are.

And they are certainly not safe. "People in jail live in the midst of violence. People are arbitrarily attacked and often severely injured," the criminal lawyer explained.

There's a young Sydney man who certainly can vouch for that. The 22-year-old had been in a sexual relationship with an older (27), very sexually experienced woman who had a porn business, and persuaded him to appear with her in porno videos. When they fell out, she accused him of rape and choking her, and trying to suffocate their baby.

The appeal case was handled by the high-profile criminal barrister Peter Lavac, and ultimately thrown out. "Her lies were exposed after 55 minutes of cross-examination," Lavac explained. When she refused to come back and resume cross examination, the crown was forced to withdraw all ten charges.

But this guy had initially been represented by legal aid, had his bail refused and spent 18 months in prison on remand. During that time, he was savagely beaten, and gang raped several times.

The strangulation allegation would have guaranteed he had no hope of bail. A Queensland police officer explained that in that state the criminal code was recently amended to include a specific offence of strangulation. "Once this was law, the rate of women reporting strangulation increased dramatically. This is a strong ground for police to oppose or object to bail. What I saw was the courts immediately started to remand men if charged with strangulation as part of a dv. Women's groups soon learned that to get a man locked up was as simple as mentioning strangulation. Most police even ask if it occurred to avoid missing it." A similar pattern has emerged in other states.

Then there's the other feminist favourite, stalking – 57% of those imprisoned for intimidation or stalking are merely accused, not convicted. Think about that – most people jailed for stalking are there solely based only on an accusation. They haven't even received a trial.

Our state governments had better start building more prisons fast given the expected tsunami of men likely to be charged with the new criminal offence of coercive control, due in the next year or so. That one is a dead certanity for denial of bail, given how hard the feminists have worked to claim coercive control is linked to domestic homicide – no matter how strong the evidence showing that is not the case – seehere.

So, what was it that triggered this big shift towards locking people up without a trial? Following demands from the media similar to those occurring today, bail laws were reformed in 2013 and 2021 so that the presumption of bail was revoked for some offences, requiring that courts assess bail risk and a "show cause" test that puts the onus on people charged with the most serious offences to justify why they should be given bail.