Australian prison. Cognitive facts about Australia

New prison High Security Hunter in northern Sydney bears little resemblance to a prison in general. There are no cameras or doors, and inmates can call late into the night or watch touch-screen TV. At the same time, they are under the scrutiny of 600 video cameras 24 hours a day, and an elite rapid response team is always ready in case of incidents.

The prison authorities believe that this is the future of the rehabilitation system for criminals such as murderers, rapists and repeat offenders.

What may surprise those who smiled skeptically reading this: in the first six months of the work of the Hunter Correctional Center, there were no attacks on guards and not a single skirmish between prisoners. Not a single case of death, escape, and only one prisoner harmed himself. And this is an excellent result compared to other high security institutions.

The goal of the prison is "to achieve one hundred percent results in the employment of prisoners, their acquisition of life skills, education and programs that correct their illegal behavior."

The inmates work five hours a day and receive $ 65 a week. They also have three hours of leisure time, which includes a treadmill and other exercise equipment, a library, and a multi-denominational chapel.

Hunter Prison was built in just a year and opened on January 30th. The building has four wings, each with four dormitories, or "blocks". Each block accommodates 25 inmates who live in open, single rooms that look more like an office. The rooms have a table, chair, mattress and interactive TV.

Although Hunter Correctional Center operates differently, it remains a prison.

The rapid response team is always ready.

Senior jail warden Melanie Campton watches one of the dorms through a window before dinner.

Inmates can store food and personal hygiene items in their room.

The 60 cm interactive TV has access to free TV channels, radio and some films.

Unlike traditional prisons, prisoners at Hunter Correctional Center do not sit behind bars.

Through these windows, guards monitor the dorms.

Inmates are provided with toilet paper, plastic kitchen utensils and a safety razor. They can keep all this in their room.

Wall with posters in the room of one of the prisoners.

The criminals lined up for roll call. Each of them, hearing his last name, must answer "Yes, miss" or "Yes, sir."

Rapid response team officers will be in any part of the prison in two minutes to prevent a dangerous situation.

In the arsenal of the guards, pepper sprays and noise grenades. However, since the opening of the prison, they have never been needed.

Personal hygiene items - baby powder, shampoo and deodorant.

Every prisoner is obliged to work. They can learn, for example, to work with metal, which will be useful for them in life outside the walls of the prison.

Also, prisoners can learn the craft of a draper. The furniture they make is used in other prisons in NSW.

The head of the Hunter Correctional Facility, Richard Haycock, wants the convicts to be rehabilitated and returned to society.

Prisoners have more access to recreational facilities than other Australian high security prisons.

The dorms have high ceilings and sound-absorbing partitions. Surprisingly, the premises are usually very quiet, even if all the inmates are in place.

There are 400 prisoners in the Hunter prison. Most of their day is occupied with work, teaching and other programs.

The correctional facility has a multi-denominational chapel.

Where there is even a room for washing your feet.

The menu for the week hangs in the kitchen, and the prisoners can choose their own meals.

Touchball is a popular game in Hunter Prison.

The prisoners are preparing dinner. They have chicken tacos and salad on Thursdays.

This, at first glance, strange, but often mentioned prefix to the name of the country sounds like a "prison continent". However, in fact, are there many countries in the world whose eleven prisons have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List? Or is there another state that has issued a collection of gold coins dedicated to the domestic penitentiary system, which was done by the Central Bank of the Australian Union - that is the official name of the country, in 2012? And we will take this series as a guide.

Prison numismatics

The history of prisons in Australia and Oceania began in the eighteenth century, when the first batch of convicts was landed on the shores of the continent in the Botany Bay area, who were forced to spend the rest of their lives away from their native Great Britain - paving roads in the thickets, building new berths in ports. Together with them came an army of officials, which was housed in a farm building that has survived to this day under the name "Old Government House" and minted on one of the coins.

So, the first prison camps appeared on the southern coast of Australia, which later became known as the state of South Wales, and the convict coal mines on the island of Tasmania, also immortalized on the coin. Three more coins are dedicated to the government institution "Hyde Park Barracks", the convict prison and the Kesnaid Women's Prison. The five-dollar series was completed by the Fremantle prison, one of the very first prisons built to contain especially dangerous criminals. Its history began in 1850, when 75 convicts aboard the Skindian ship, which arrived on the shores of the fifth continent, began construction, which lasted nine years. After some time, again by the forces of prisoners, a unique kilometer-long hydraulic structure was built under the prison - a system of tunnels with drainage tanks. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, when during the outbreak of the "gold rush" the number of serious crimes increased sharply, a block was added to the main citadel, which housed death row cells and carried out sentences. Serial killer Eric Edgar Cook was the last to be hanged here in 1964.

Unfortunately, the lack of attention by the prison authorities to the conditions of detention of prisoners led to tragic consequences. In January 1988, when Australia was hit by a fifty-degree heat, due to the lack of air conditioning, several of the inhabitants of the cells died from heatstroke, while the rest rose up in a riot, in the suppression of which several more prisoners died. Among other things, due to the outbreak of a fire, a significant part of the premises received significant damage.

In the aftermath of the incident, authorities decided to move the inmates to a renovated and expanded prison in Perth, and to turn Fremantle into a museum. Now visitors can get acquainted with the history of the prison and its inhabitants, but also get married in an Anglican church. The former hospital houses the Children's Literature Club, the College of Arts and an art gallery of paintings created by inmates during art therapy sessions.

Pioneers in shackles

Oddly enough, they were the first to exile not the most inveterate criminals here. It's just that the prisons of Foggy Albion were so overcrowded that it was decided to send all the prisoners there indiscriminately - no matter whether he was a murderer or a petty swindler. But the fate for both was the same - shackles, an iron collar with spikes, punishment in the form of flogging with a whip or being stripped naked and chained to a pole under the scorching rays of the sun. However, those who could pay the guards not only did not spend the night in miserable shacks, but, according to the "idea" of the authorities, those who were not fit for physical labor could spend all their time in solid houses rebuilt at their expense.

Convict women also enjoyed relative privileges and were sent to a nearby weaving factory. However, some of them, trading their bodies, successfully married their regular clients, often the same convicts.

How are we sitting?

The main prison of Australia today is quite rightly called the Parramatt prison in New South Wales, where prisoners who have committed the most serious crimes are serving their sentences. We will return to this list later, but for now it is worth noting that the inhabitants of this prison can afford at public expense something that is beyond the means of other ordinary taxpayers. For example, you can have an artificial jaw inserted, have cosmetic surgery, or even change your gender. The order here was so liberal that the administration even allowed to receive from the wild parcels with condoms for men and latex wipes for women, and even mobile phones... However, as it turned out in 2005, many prisoners, mainly from among the "godfathers", tried to use mobile phones to lead their gangs, even from behind bars. The police radio interception service has identified 17 cases of such conversations in just one month. After that, the guards staged a rampant search, seizing cell phones. The alerted inhabitants of the cells tried to hide the pipes in various places. Men - by disguising them in pieces of bread, and women - by hiding them in ... intimate places. Fighting the penetration of this infection into the cells turned out to be difficult, so the director of the prison ordered the installation of "jammers". It is also curious that after the introduction of this ban in another prison, Rimutaka, the guards organized a business. Some sold pipes to convicts, while others after a while confiscated them, and then sold them again.

It also turned out that during the Christmas period numerous Santa Clauses brought various gifts to the prisoners. During the operation carried out by the prison authorities, in just two weeks, dozens of cold weapons were seized from Santa Clauses - knives, machetes, sharpeners and even (just in case) ladies' false acrylic nails.

Last year, at the government level, it was proposed to close this oldest penitentiary institution, founded in 1852, and turn it into hotel... But so far this year they decided to reconstruct another prison of the nineteenth century - "Pentbridge" for residential and commercial complexes.

By Russian standards, the food for prisoners can be equated to a sanatorium, and the menu claims to be international. Breakfast is typically English: scrambled eggs, oatmeal, bacon, sausages, rolls, coffee, tea or juices. But for lunch, prison chefs can offer dishes from Malay, Japanese or Chinese cuisine. Most of the diet is occupied by vegetables grown in subsidiary prison farms. Agricultural production is especially developed in the prison of the city of Banbury, from where vegetables are delivered to other prison. For example, in 2008, a 135-kilogram pumpkin was grown here, which not only won a prize at a food show, but was also used as the main ingredient for soup served for dinner to the inhabitants of this correctional institution.

No right to pardon

We will not dwell on the Australian judicial system in detail for the reason that it can be described as “legal chaos”. Surprisingly, this civilized country still does not have a single criminal code. The only document that is valid in all states determines the degree of responsibility for the commission of state crimes. But at the level of counties and districts, the main legal documents, in accordance with which the classification of crimes, be it murder or petty theft, is made, are special acts. Yes, in addition, the legal proceedings themselves are extremely confusing: in the country there are county and district courts, magistrates (intermediate) courts, small sessions, family courts - on the part of divorces. There is even a special tribunal in the state of Victoria to deal with controversial issues arising during construction. Several states also have "industrial" tribunals that arbitrate in resolving conflicts between entrepreneurs. True, sentences for grave crimes come into force only after they have been approved by the Supreme Court.

But the laws in the country are quite harsh. Russians today are waiting with interest what amendments the deputies will make to the laws toughening the responsibility for car recklessness, including for driving. vehicle drunk. This problem has already been solved in Australia. In October 2012, ex-kickboxing champion Gyurkan Ozkon in Melbourne rushed in his racing Mazda at a red traffic light at a speed of 180 kilometers per hour. So, the district court did not accept as mitigating circumstances either that the trip ended without serious consequences, or that the Turk was a guest of honor in the Australian Martial Arts Association. The traffic offender was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for dangerous driving. Moreover, parole can come only after two years.

And there is a category of convicts for whom early release does not shine at all. These are, firstly, members of Mark Hayden's gang from the town of Snowtown, who are serving their sentences in the special block of the Prarramatt prison. The ringleader and three more of his accomplices were convicted of luring victims into a rented building of a former bank since the mid-90s of the last century. After that, representatives of the so-called sexual minorities were killed after torture, and their bodies were dismembered, and the remains were preserved in barrels. So, according to the leader, they "cleansed the world of filth." Hayden will spend the rest of his life behind bars; his friends received sentences ranging from 26 to 48 years in prison. Here only with a note on the verdict "Without the right to pardon."

Barra John Watts and his girlfriend Wally Fay Back are now in the same prison. These two bums, who were engaged in fraud and theft, smoking "weed", decided to use seven-year-old Xiang King for their sexual amusements. When they traveled around Australia, in the small town of Noosa, they kidnapped a girl, and then, having outraged her, Watts killed the baby.

Vincent Farrow also became a kind of a convict of this prison. At the age of twenty, he organized a gang that was engaged in robberies and murders, but thanks to the efforts of lawyers, it was not possible to prove the guilt of the young man as the leader of a criminal group. But the judge nevertheless meted out a substantial term of 55 years in prison for ... participation in a total sin, which, through the efforts of the prosecution, was qualified as gang rape. As noted by Attorney General Bob Dabus, this is the harshest conviction in Australia for such an act.

But the most famous prisoner remains the great-grandson of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Nicholas Bartan, who, having settled in Australia, found nothing better than to start producing ecstasy drugs, supplying them not only to clubs and discos, but also to prisons. As a result of the operation carried out by the police, his clandestine laboratory was liquidated. The production of steel was 55 kilograms of raw materials for the production of the potion, stamping equipment and production manager Ross Woodrit, a New Zealander. Both were sent to jail, and their former customers were not discouraged for long. After the supply channel of the potion was closed, for example, in the same prison "Parramatt", where the accomplices were, the prisoners began to breed poisonous spiders "black widow", from the extract of which, diluted with water, they made a drug.

And in the Golburn Prison prison it got to the point that the prison administration, rejoicing at the desire of their wards to work in greenhouses, was unpleasantly surprised to learn that the "agronomists" were growing hemp there, which is then processed into marijuana.

However, the prisoners did not grieve for long about the lack of "foolishness." One of them came up with an ingenious plan. The fact is that one of the troubles of Australia is the rapidly expanding range of frogs, devouring beneficial insects, and on which a total hunt has been announced. So, the clever convict suggested that the authorities start sewing leather shorts in the prison workshop. "Good" was received, the work began to boil, but the final product was in no hurry to appear. It turned out that from the skin of a poisonous amphibian, craftsmen were digesting a drug that is in no way inferior in its qualities to the drug LSD.

Caution Al-Qaeda!

The psychosis that gripped Europe and the United States in connection with the activities of terrorist organizations did not bypass Australia. The authorities even designated the Barvon prison near Melbourne to contain such terrorists. For example, Jack Roche, submitted to Great Britain, spent nine years in it. An Englishman who converted to Islam was accused of trying to organize terrorist attack at the Israeli embassy. During his arrest, he himself admitted that he had undergone training in one of the al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan and even met with bin Laden.

Nevertheless, after serving his sentence, it was decided to release him early on the condition that Jack would regularly appear at the police station for registration, and his telephone conversations and communications via the Internet would be monitored by Australian counterintelligence. Another “Australian Islamist”, taxi driver Joseph Thomson, was much less fortunate. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for participating in the preparation of an explosion at a nuclear power plant. He failed to serve his term in full, since in April 2006 he was beaten to death by inmates.

By the way, the most extravagant convict committed from this prison. Robert Cole, in order to gain freedom, made a hole in the wall, but due to his fullness he could not squeeze through it. And then he went on a diet. After several months of fasting, he lost 14 kilograms, and then carried out the planned escape.

Sergey Uranov
Based on materials from the newspaper
"Behind Bars" (No. 5 2013)

Dreaming about distant countries is typical for children and adults. But this is perhaps the most amazing country. Country. Island. Continent. And all this is about Australia! South of Indonesia, between Indian Ocean and the southern part of the Pacific is this smallest continent on the globe... When talking about this wonderful part of our planet, we will often use the superlative and the word “most”.

Important physical characteristics of the island include the Big Barrier reef- coral reef - the longest in the world. Its length is 2300 km, and it is visible from space.

Beautiful cities are located along the ocean coast, numerous huge sandy beaches... In winter, there is a huge amount of snow in the mountains, such as Snowy mountains or the Australian Alps. Sometimes - more than in the whole mountainous Switzerland.
The cleanest air in the world is in Australian Tasmania. Most White sand at Hyams Beach, Jersey Bay. He was even entered into the Guinness Book of Records.

Australia is the oldest continent, but the youngest state. And yet ... it has no land borders with any country. Leading in literacy, Australia is one of the ten countries in the world with the most high level life. Outstripped such a monster as South America for the extraction of diamonds. After opening in 1979. diamond vein in Western Australia, it now ranks first in the world for the extraction of these gemstones. The country's currency is the Australian dollar, by the way, made of plastic.

The largest city in this country is Sydney (population - 4 million people). The capital Canberra is not so crowded - its population is 300 thousand people. But it is there that the largest building in the southern hemisphere is located. This is the magnificent Australian Parliament building.

An architectural wonder built in 1960 is the Sydney Opera theatre... Just think, there are 1000 halls in it! Accommodates - 5000 people! And the roof of this grandiose structure weighs 161 tons.

Another monumental structure is the largest arch bridge in Sydney Harbor - Bridge. And the Sydney TV Tower is the tallest in the southern hemisphere.

Making up 1% of the world's population, 88% of Australians live in cities. Moreover, literally a quarter of the population of this continent was born outside of it. And 32% of women and 34% of men have never been engaged. 2.5 people for 1 sq. km - such a density of the population of this country, in terms of area comparable to the populous Europe.

Once - the most big prison- a former British penal colony ... now - the mainland with the lowest crime rate on the globe. Although over the past 200 years, a total of 160 thousand prisoners have been exiled to this remote continent. The indigenous tribes (aborigines) living in "New South Wales" (as Australia was called at that time) spoke 200 languages ​​and dialects. Now they make up only 1.5% of the population and drag out a miserable, miserable existence. But the other part of the population is not shy about spending, for example, when playing poker. 20% of the funds all over the world, lost in this insanely gambling game, go to the inhabitants of this country.

The world's largest pasture (in Australia it is called a ranch) is comparable to the territory of such European country like Belgium. The most popular pets are sheep. And if the number of these animals is 150 million, then, for comparison, the population of the continent is 20 million people. In this amazing country there are 16 times more rabbits than people. There they are classified as pests. There are a lot of kangaroos, which are now even bred on a ranch.

Marsupials living in Australia, like many millions of years ago, are not the only rare species of the animal world. V national parks and nature reserves of the continent, such as Buffalo, Kostsyushko, South West, etc., ostrich emu, kangaroo, kookaburra, koala, various parrots, kokadu, feral dog Dingo, platypus and echidna, snakes (among them there are a lot of poisonous ones) feel great ...

Penguins and seals swim from Antarctica to the southern coast of the mainland. There are a lot of insect species in this country: 4000 species of ants, 350 - termites, 6000 - flies, 1500 - spiders.
© Inga Korneshova article written specifically for the site
Since this mainland is located in the southern hemisphere, when we have winter, there is summer heat and a beach season. And even the disk of the moon on this “island-continent” is turned upside down.

Correctional Center in the Australian city of Goulburn locals referred to simply as "Sphere". It is renowned as the worst prison in the country. It is here that the most inveterate criminals - rapists, murderers, sadists - are serving their sentences. British journalists managed to see the gloomy institution from the inside.

The Correctional Center in the Australian city of Goulburn, 90 kilometers from Canberra and 195 kilometers from Sydney, is simply called "The Sphere" by the locals. And also - a "human zoo". The local cage cells contain the most dangerous criminals in Australia - mostly murderers and rapists.
The building of the prison in Goulburn was built in the 19th century. The institution will soon celebrate its 150th anniversary.
There are about 30 prisoners in each wing of the prison. The criminals are divided along ethnic lines: natives of Asia, the Middle East and Australian aborigines live separately from each other. Murderers and rapists are kept together in a separate wing.
Prisoner Matthew De Gruci is serving a 28-year sentence in Sphere for the murder of his mother, brother and sister. He recently took part in an attack on two prisoners, as a result of which the victims were sent to the prison hospital with fractures and brain damage.
Serial killer Ivan Milat, sentenced in 1996 to six life sentences, tried unsuccessfully to escape from Sphere.
Thomas Hudson Wilson was Milat's unsuccessful escape partner. He ended up in the Sphere for brutally beating a woman with an iron bar. Wilson smashed the victim's face, broke his arms and legs. As the judge said at the trial, she will never be able to fully recover from her injuries. The capture of the perpetrator did not take long: due to the complete absence of hair on the head and body of Wilson, the victim easily identified the perpetrator.
Bassam Hamzi is perhaps Australia's most protected criminal, Islamist and leader of the Assassins organized crime group. After several years of his stay in prison, it turned out that Hamzi was successfully persuading other prisoners to convert to Islam and safely steers the affairs of a criminal group while behind bars.
Hamzi kept a poster with the emblem of his group "Assassins" - "Assassins" in his cell.
The Gate to Hell is the main gateway to the Goulburn Correctional Center. Behind these gates there is both the main building of the prison and a special supermax building for the most dangerous prisoners. It is there that Bassam Hamzi is serving time.
Mohammed Skaf was only 17 years old when, following his older brother Bilal, he found himself in a youth criminal gang that committed a number of brutal rapes of young Sydney women.
Bilal Scaf is now 31 years old. he is serving a 33-year sentence in Sphere on charges of multiple rapes.
There is always tension between prisoners in prison, and joint walks in caged courtyards often end in fights and violence. The picture shows homemade weapons taken from prisoners by guards. Knives and sharpeners are made from any available items - combs, brushes, any metal objects found in prison.
Killer Leith Marchant, who is serving time in Sphere under the influence of Bassam Hamzi, converted to Islam. Now he sleeps on the bare floor of the cell and, as the warders say, constantly hatches plans to escape.
Mark van Crevel killed three men, gutting and beheading his first victim.
Vestor Fernando went to prison for the murder of nurse Sandra Khor. While behind bars, he killed his own cousin, who also ended up in the "Sphere".
Serial killer Lindsay Rose was caught making duplicate keys to prison doors. as it turned out, he was preparing to kill the guards.
The main building of the Goulburn Correctional Center was completed in 1884.
Australian beauty queen Anita Cobby was kidnapped by five criminals after a shift at the hospital where she worked as a nurse. Anita was taken to a wasteland in northern Sydney, brutally raped and killed, almost completely chopping off the girl's head. This crime was committed in 1986. Three accomplices in the murder, brothers Michael, Harry and Leslie Murphy, are still serving time for the murder of Anita Cobby at the Goulburn Correctional Center.
Janine Balding, 20, was raped and killed in one of the railway stations Sydney in 1988. her killer, former tramp Stephen Jameson, now has a permanent residence in The Sphere.
Victims of serial killer Ivan Milat. Basically, they were young tourists traveling around Australia. Milat is very sensitive to the conditions of his detention: for example, when his sandwich maker was taken away from him, he made a huge scandal and even went on a hunger strike, which, however, lasted less than two days.
The killer Janine Balding Stephen Jamison, nicknamed "Shorty": The height of the killer and rapist is only 147 centimeters. He is in
Anita Cobby's Assassins, Murphy Brothers: Leslie ...
... Harry ...
... and Michael. The brothers sentenced to life imprisonment will not leave the "Sphere" until the end of their lives.
Goulburn is located in southern Australia, New South Wales, 90 kilometers from the country's capital, Canberra, and 195 kilometers from Sydney.
Farhad Kwaumi has already tried to cause riots in the prison more than once. So, he planned to flood the cell, urging fellow inmates to join him, break out from behind the bars and start killing the guards. He had already prepared a homemade knife to kill the guards when he was caught.
And this weapon was confiscated from visitors who tried to smuggle it into prisoners during visits. Of course, it is strictly forbidden to bring weapons into the territory of the prison. If a visitor is found to have any weapon, it is confiscated, and the offender is immediately arrested.
The killer Guy Staines converted to Islam in prison.
The mentally disabled killer Craig Richardson, having made a sharpening from parts from prison simulators, tried to start a fire in his cell in order to lure the guards into it and attack them. As a violent inmate, Richardson was transferred to the Supermax Corps for Highly Dangerous Criminals.
The guards of the Goulburn Correctional Center confiscate drugs, edged weapons, mobile phones and SIM cards from prisoners and their guests almost every day.
serial rapist Bilal Skaf in the visiting room with his parents, Mustafou's father and Baria's mother. Later, Baria was convicted of trying to take out notes from prison in socks, which Bilal sent free with her, bypassing the prison censorship. After that, Baria was prohibited from visiting his son.
Ronald Priestley, the Sphere killer, has been involved in riots and attacks on prison guards on several occasions.
The picture shows policemen carrying the bodies of victims of serial killer Ivan Milat from Belanglo Forest in New South Wales. Milat himself will never leave the walls of the Sphere.

Eastern Australia was declared British territory in 1770, and the first colony was founded on January 26, 1788. As Australia's population grew, six self-governing colonies were established in Australia.

On January 1, 1901, the six colonies formed a federation. Since then, Australia has maintained a stable democratic system of government. Australia's neighbors are Indonesia, Timor Leste and Papua - New Guinea from the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu from the northeast, New Zealand from the southeast. The shortest distance between the main island of Papua New Guinea and mainland Australia is 150 kilometers; however, it is only 5 kilometers from the Australian island of Boygu to Papua New Guinea.

The name "Australia" comes from lat. australis meaning southern. Legends of the "unknown southern land"(terra australis incognita) go back to the time of the Romans, were a common place in medieval geography, but were not based on real knowledge. The Dutch have used this term for all newly discovered southern lands since 1638.

The name "Australia" became popular after the publication of Captain Mafew Flinders' Voyage to Terra Australis. The Governor of New South Wales McQuirey used this title in correspondence with England. In 1817 he recommended this name as the official one. In 1824 the British Admiralty finally approved this name for the continent.

How immigration to Australia began

However, at the beginning of the 18th century, the authorities issued a law that in many cases made it possible to replace the death penalty with deportation to the English colonies in North America... Soon there, mainly in Virginia and Maryland, ships began to send up to a thousand prisoners a year. But, declaring himself in 1776 independent state, these colonies no longer wanted to accept British criminals. Then they began to be sent to the terrible floating prisons on the River Thames, but they were also overcrowded.

The way out appeared thanks to the discovery of new lands by Captain James Cook. In 1786, it was decided to make the east coast of Australia a place of exile. The following year, the First Fleet sailed off the coast of England to establish the first colony called New South Wales. Other ships followed him, and soon many penal settlements were formed in Australia, including on Norfolk Island, located 1,500 kilometers northeast of Sydney.

"Many of the 'criminals' deported to Australia were under-teens," writes Bill Beatty in his book Early Australia-With Shame Remembered. As the book says, in one case, a court sentenced a seven-year-old boy to "life in exile in Australia".

First wave of immigration to Australia: the founding of hard labor colonies.

Shipwrecks were another threat to life. The British ship "Amphitrite", five days after leaving England, while still within sight of the coast of France, was caught in a violent storm. Thrown mercilessly by the waves for two days, the ship ran aground a kilometer offshore on August 31, 1883 at five o'clock in the afternoon.

However, the team did not make any rescue attempts and did not launch lifeboats... Why? For one simple reason: so that the prisoners - 120 women and children - do not run away! After three hours filled with horror, the ship began to sink, and people began to be washed into the sea. Most of the team and all 120 women and children were killed. In the following days, 82 corpses were thrown ashore, and among them was the corpse of a mother who hugged her child so tightly that even death could not separate them.

But I must say that the situation of some of the prisoners was not so bad. Indeed, for someone in Australia, in fact, better prospects opened up than at home. Yes, that part of Australia's history was extremely contradictory: it combined cruelty and mercy, death and hope. It originated in the UK.

Settling Australia: When Death Is Desired.

Only priests, as spiritual persons and therefore inviolable, could openly condemn such inhuman treatment. "No words can describe how cruel the convicts were treated," wrote one priest. "What is scary to even think about was done with complete impunity."

A History of Australia: A Glimpse of Hope.

The Maconoki reform was so effective that it was later widely adopted in England, Ireland and the United States. But at the same time, with his innovations, Makonoki dealt a strong blow to the pride of some influential people, whose methods he rejected. It cost him space. After his departure, the abuse in Norfolk resumed, but not for long. In 1854, thanks to the priests, the island ceased to be a place of convict settlements, and the exiles were transported to Tasmania, to Port Arthur.

Port Arthur, especially in the early years, also terrified people. Still, the treatment of convicts here was not as cruel as in Norfolk. Corporal punishment was abolished here almost completely back in 1840.

As Ian Brand wrote in his book Port Arthur-1830-1877, George Arthur, the strict governor of Tasmania, wanted to cement his colony's reputation as a "place of iron discipline." At the same time, Arthur wanted every convict to learn that "good behavior is rewarded, and bad behavior is punished." To do this, he divided the convicts into seven categories, starting with those who were promised early release for exemplary behavior, and ending with those who were sentenced to the most difficult labor in shackles.

When exile to Australia proved to be a blessing

Governor Lachlan Macquarie, an ardent defender of the freed convicts, said: "A person who has been released should never be reminded of a criminal past, much less reproach them; you need to make him feel like a full-fledged member of society, who by exemplary behavior has already atoned for his guilt and has become decent man. " Macquarie backed his words with deeds: he singled out the freed exiles land, and also gave them some prisoners to help in the field and with the housework.

Over time, many hardworking and enterprising former convicts became wealthy and respected, and in some cases even famous people... For example, Samuel Lightfoot founded the first hospitals in Sydney and Hobart. William Redfern became a respected physician, and to Francis Greenaway Australians owe much architectural structures in and around Sydney.

Finally, in 1868, 80 years later, Australia ceased to be a place of exile. The modern society of this country is not reminiscent of those terrible years... Partially preserved convict settlements are only of historical interest. Less terrifying evidence of that era has also survived: bridges, buildings and churches built by convicts. Some of them are in excellent condition and are still in use today.