"No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones." So said Nelson Mandela after spending close to three decades of his life imprisoned.

December 17 marks two years since the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Nelson Mandela Rules, the minimum standards for how we should treat people behind bars. And so it is fitting that today we judge our nation through Mandela's eyes – how we choose to treat the men, women and children who are locked away in prisons across Australia.

Strip searches are ubiquitous in almost all Australian prisons. Credit:Angela Wylie

Australia is cramming people into prisons at increasing and record rates. Around 40,000 adults and 1000 children are behind bars today.

The backdrop to Australia's prisons is one characterised by social betrayal and prejudice: people who have been sexually abused as children, domestic violence survivors, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and people with disability are all unfairly over-represented in every prison in every state and territory.