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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2261 ..

recommendations, has brought together evidence from people in the support agencies, families of offenders and experiences from interstate—both positive and negative.

In Western Australia the government funds a non-government agency, Outcare, to provide family specific programs adjacent to but not part of six of its prisons. This service is the first port of call a visitor can make when visiting a prisoner. It also provides ongoing support to the families and to the kids in particular, to ensure that the family unit is kept intact and is as healthy a unit as possible.

I digress briefly. When somebody visits a prisoner for the first time it is a pretty horrendous experience, as you may imagine. One of the ladies we spoke to said that, when she came out from the first visit, all she wanted to do was sit down and cry. The facility just outside the prison provided the opportunity for that lady to sit down and cry, have a cup of tea, regather her dignity and move on. When she came the next time she was a little bit stronger for the experience.

Imagine, if you will, a person leaving the Goulburn visitors centre. It is cold inside and there is nothing outside. My heart goes out to those women—and they are predominantly women. In South Australia children can stay with their mothers inside, up to a certain age. This is because it is judged to be in the interests of the child. Significantly, the South Australian government feels that the best interests of the child should transcend the need for the community to punish an offender.

There is an opportunity for the ACT to bring together experiences like those in Western Australia and South Australia, to identify shortcomings in our own attitudes and services, and develop a holistic support system to assist these victims. What is needed is an attitudinal change by the community to include these families, rather than excluding them. The community needs to develop a show bag of services to assist the families and the community needs to fully embrace the principles of restorative justice; the community needs to abandon the concept of warehousing prisoners and exacting revenge on offenders’ families.

I digress a little further. It is just not so that criminals come from criminal families in every case, but that is the community’s attitude and that is what we must attack. Some of the changes can happen overnight and some will require generational change. The report suggests some changes immediately, such as the development of the Outcare model as in Western Australia, the development of CD based information for children of offenders, the provision of better assisted transport to prisons in New South Wales such as Goulburn and Junee, more family-friendly visit facilities at Belconnen Remand Centre and Quamby, and a folding into the development of policies for the new prison services which assist the families.

The community attitude towards the families of offenders can only be changed when informed discussion takes place. The report seeks to start the public debate on this serious issue. It is essential to understand that the focus is on the families, not on the prisoners. Society currently addresses many of the issues around support services for victims, such as the victims of crime assistance scheme. It addresses many of the issues around rehabilitation of the prisoner but it does not address any of the problems families encounter.

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