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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2263 ..

I urge the government to pick up the recommendations in the report and implement them as soon as they possibly can so that these children and families do not have to suffer any more. There are some very simple processes that can be changed in relation to what happens when families visit at the remand centre, or at Symonston.

I draw members’ attention to the discussions on pages 81 to 82 about the strip searching of visitors. When somebody goes in to visit a family member, if they are suspected of having drugs they are strip searched. Children can be strip searched. This is a very traumatic thing for a family or child to go through. They have done nothing wrong. A study has shown that in Western Australia most strip searches found no contraband. The strip searches did not provide what the people who were conducting them thought they would provide.

There is another way to deal with this. Through strip searches they are trying to address the problem of the entrance of drugs into the prison system and the delivery of contraband services to prisoners, but that does not mean that the family should be punished if something is going wrong.

The prisoners are already incarcerated; they are being held because they have committed a crime. Prison wardens and the justice system have control over these people. They can search them after the visit is over and remove any contraband at that point. We do not have to punish the families; we do not have to deny these visits; we do not have to put children through incredibly traumatic situations.

We have found in other studies, and through this study, that children pick up behaviour quite quickly. If an attitude is foist upon them that they are below society, that they are undertaking criminal activity because their parents have undertaken criminal activity, then they will learn that behaviour. We need to help break the cycle of crime. That means not treating the families of people involved in crime as criminals.

One of the major things we touch on in this report is how we support children when a primary caregiver or parent is incarcerated. At the moment, it is not standard practice when the police arrest somebody—or for the courts—to ask whether or not they have children and, if so, how those children will be cared for. That is a major failing. We should be asking automatically, “If we are going to deny your liberty, who is this going to impact on? What support services need to be in place so your children are fed tonight?” Those are basic questions which need to be asked.

I commend recommendation 17 to members and urge them to read through the discussion there, so that we are supporting children, ensuring that their lives remain as stable as possible and that they get support when a primary caregiver is incarcerated. I also draw members’ attention to chapter 10, where we look at some big-picture issues. Here we put forward some discussion about why people are being incarcerated in the first place.

Why are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters being taken away? What are we doing with our diversionary programs? What are we doing with our non-custodial sentencing options? How are we helping offenders who need substance abuse detox and rehabilitation to achieve that so they can get out of the cycle of criminal behaviour?

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