Page 1008 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 31 March 1993
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The Government's proposed response, as was outlined, is to focus, in the first instance, on new corrections legislation and to address some of the problems that Mr Humphries raised in his reference to those letters from prisoners at Goulburn. I received a copy of that letter. Their complaint that they are unable to do work release is something that we indicated would be addressed. In my statement on the government response to Paying the Price I noted that the proposed new corrections legislation will include provision for transitional release of prisoners, designed to assist in their successful reintegration into the ACT community. Very much the philosophy behind the Government's response is to focus first on those issues which will further enhance non-custodial sentences and assist in that transition from prison to the free community. That issue of work release is just part of it.
Mr Humphries addressed the fact that there could be some legal complications. It is not an easy matter and that is why a legislative framework is necessary before we can introduce those programs. I can understand the frustration of the person in the New South Wales prison system who perhaps is a tradesperson, who could easily get a job in Canberra, who perhaps could easily have accommodation guaranteed, and says, "Why can't I come down here?". The answer is, as Mr Humphries indicated, that there are legal complications in doing that when you go out of the New South Wales system, and we will need corrections legislation to cover those issues. Work is going on within the department on getting drafting instructions ready for that, and it is something that was announced in the Government's forward plan for legislation. So we will be focusing on that.
I was pleased to hear, from both Mr Humphries and Ms Szuty, support for the fact that we do, in the ACT, strongly emphasise alternatives to imprisonment. Ms Szuty's comment about only some 17 per cent of prisoners on remand ending up with custodial sentences reinforces the point that we have in Canberra the lowest rate of imprisonment in Australia. That is something that I think we should be quite pleased about. Mr Humphries made the point, and he is quite right, that there are some offences for which imprisonment is the only alternative, and he voiced the hope that the prison system should have a rehabilitative aspect. I think that is a hope that we probably all have, but it is a hope that very rarely seems to be translated into reality in Australia. It is far better if we can, through non-custodial sentences, try to achieve that rehabilitative effect.
One of the pleasing features of community service orders, which are widely used in the ACT, is the very low rate at which they are breached. It does seem that the CSO system is getting a message home to individuals and is being seen as a very successful program, moving people who have gone off the rails back in the right direction. The hope that a person will go into the prison system and come out a reformed individual is a hope that successive governments have, but I do not know that any system anywhere in Australia can point to great successes on that. It does seem that alternatives to imprisonment offer us the most hope. I was pleased again that the Opposition, in particular, were acknowledging the worth of non-custodial sentences. So we have a fairly bipartisan approach in this chamber; that we do not immediately say, "Lock them up". We try other alternatives first, while recognising that imprisonment is the last resort.
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