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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4406 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Why have we such a significant increase in the number of people on remand in the Australian Capital Territory? Has there been an extraordinary increase in crime? I notice that in this report there is a reference to some AFP figures indicating an increase of 18 per cent, but I think they are taken somewhat out of context. I do not mean that the report takes them out of context; it is where they were taken from, the Canberra Times. There has been some statistical evidence that there has been a decrease in crime in the Australian Capital Territory in the last little while. What is very clear is that there has not been a major increase in the level of crime; yet I think double the number of people detained in the previous year were detained, or very close to it.

We really have to ask ourselves a fundamental question. What is going on in terms of our system? Is this assisting us to get a healthier society? Are we trying to achieve the sorts of things that Ms Follett so aptly described when she said that people, by preference, ought not be held in bricks and mortar, as she put it? She named a number of people we would expect to be detained in that way, but there are many other ways of punishing people who deserve to be punished in some more appropriate way that we should continue to explore.

We have to be particularly careful as we discuss this issue of prisons. If we create a prison, are we going to find that the easy solution is to slap people in prison and feel good about it, when in fact the long-term outcome of that will be the creation of many more problems than we solve? We know that when we put people in prison it becomes a very good learning place. In fact, prison is often referred to as "the college" because people learn so much. They learn not about how to live in a better society, not about how to become less violent, not about how to respect other people's property, not about how to respect other people's welfare, not about how to respect other people's bodies and their being; rather, they learn a great deal more about codes of criminal conduct and methods of criminal conduct, and that has just the opposite effect to what we want.

One of the great jokes that were going around when Tasmania passed its legislation on homosexuality was, "Put them in gaol to teach them not to be gay". The irony is not to be missed. You can extend that same joke and say we put people in prisons to teach them not to be bad. It is the very opposite of what we want to achieve. We have to be very careful that this discussion about our methods of dealing with people who come before the law is very broad. Similarly, I think it is important for us as members to be conscious of alternatives when we are drafting legislation. We say, "What should the penalty be? Yes, 50 penalty points or two years' gaol. That seems to be the norm". We have attempted to make the penalty consistent. In fact, it is time for us to look at alternatives. So far we have two alternatives in most of our legislation, namely, imprisonment or a fine, or both. I guess in one sense that is three.

Perhaps we need to put into our legislation community service orders and other more appropriate mechanisms. I noticed Mr De Domenico walking around with an anti-graffiti can or something earlier today. In such a case perhaps the penalty ought to be so many hours of cleaning graffiti, or a penalty along those lines.

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