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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4049 ..

health care, rehabilitation and reintegration and administration and discipline. Drug use, particularly injecting drug use behaviour, presents as an occupational health and safety risk to staff, other prisoners and visitors. Australia’s national drug strategy has recognised that some illicit drugs will get into prisons and the appropriate response is to adopt the policy of harm minimisation. The main objectives of the prison’s application of harm minimisation would be to ensure the security and safety of prisoners, staff and visitors.

Safe withdrawal and rehabilitative treatment will be provided and health issues related to alcohol and drugs addressed. Education programs dealing with alcohol, safe injecting practices, safe sexual behaviour, drink/drive programs and smoking programs will also be provided. Drug detection measures will be set and will include drug detection dogs as well as appropriate technology and services provided by the Australian Federal Police.

In simple terms, the profile of the female prisoner population is marked by more damage, disadvantage, disease and disaffection than in the male prisoner population. Accordingly, four principles, which reflect those adopted in Canada, Western Australia and New South Wales in its new facility at Dillwynia, will underpin the management of women prisoners. The first principle is personal responsibility and empowerment of the individual. Many women in custody are marginalised and alienated, with no experience of making positive decisions that affect their lives. Prison staff will give women in their care the power to make such decisions and accept that as their personal responsibility.

The second principle is family responsibility. The objective of this principle is to ensure that prisoners who are mothers and primary carers are provided with maximum contact with their families and children and to buttress this by providing programs and support directed at improving relationship and parenting skills. The third principle is community responsibility. Many women are alienated from their communities and lack supports within them. Prisoners will be encouraged and supported to become engaged with members of the community, develop a sense of community responsibility and set in place post-release support arrangements.

The fourth principle is respect and integrity. Services provided within the prison will be gender and culturally appropriate and will respect the dignity of people and the differences between them. Where it is determined to be in the best interests of a child, provision will be made for the child, up to the age of three, to reside with the mother in custody, although the safety and wellbeing of the child will always be the priority.

The Australian Capital Territory population projections 2002-32 and beyond report that the indigenous population in Canberra, currently approximately 1.2 per cent of the total population, is expected to continue to increase both in number and as a proportion of the total population, due to the higher levels of fertility, high migration into the ACT and an increasing propensity for people of indigenous descent to identify themselves as indigenous. Indigenous prisoners presently constitute approximately 9 per cent of the ACT prison population. While this is lower than the national average, it still represents an unacceptable level of indigenous overrepresentation in prison.

The government’s recent initiatives in circle sentencing and restorative justice are engaging indigenous groups and the indigenous leadership in responding to issues arising

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