• 1983-12-23 - 1993-02-16 (Creation)

This series contains personal correspondence between prisoners in Western Australian correctional institutions and the Hon. Joseph Berinson MLC in his capacity as Minister for Corrective Services.

The content of this correspondence covers matters such as:

• prisoner requests for clemency, sentence remission, transfers;

• applications for work release and home detention;

• requests for official investigations or appeals;

• parole eligibility or breaches of parole;

• matters concerning prison regulations or offences in prison;

• applications for inclusion within the resocialisation programme and requests for various other favours of the Minister.

Files are ordered alphabetically by the surname of the prisoner concerned and include both the original correspondence received by the Minister and photocopies of the Minister's reply. Upon creation, each file was assigned a file number, as part of a consecutive numbering sequence used within the Minister's office. This is a reference number for the file only, not for the official prisoner number.

Files for prisoners marked "deceased" relate to correspondence to the Minister's office generated by the death in custody of the prisoner listed. In these cases the correspondence will pertain to the circumstances of the death and the resulting investigation into the matter.

Some of the correspondence held within this series has been indexed as part of the general correspondence card index (see Record Series No. 1590). This index contains references to all inward correspondence to the Minister, and is primarily arranged alphabetically by the name of the correspondent, although some subject references have also been included.

PLEASE NOTE: Record listings for this series are not publicly accessible to protect the confidentiality of persons mentioned in the file titles.