Page 2824 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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clarification of the Sentence Administration Board’s power to give retrospective approval not to perform periodic detention, ensuring the chair of the Sentence Administration Board has the power to organise business, clarifying the board’s powers when it cancels periodic detention orders where an offender is convicted or found guilty of another offence, and the prohibition of holiday exclusions for offenders who do not consistently perform periodic detention.
The first amendment reforms the detainee discipline scheme and meets the government’s objective to implement the recommendations of the Hamburger review. Section 5.2.4.5, recommendation 4 of the Hamburger review, was that the government should ensure that ACT Corrective Services work with appropriate authorities to review the detainee disciplinary process to address concerns relating to its complexity and facilitate a simpler process. At present, detainee discipline provisions impose overly burdensome administrative requirements on corrections officers.
The amendments make the legal processes for managing detainee discipline more effective and responsive whilst continuing to ensure detainee rights are properly protected. The process will be simpler and easier to use for officers and easier to understand for detainees. The amendments improve the efficiency of the detainee discipline process by removing the administrator role from the process and making the investigator role a step to be used at the discretion of the presiding officer. These changes mean that the allegations of a breach of discipline, particularly in minor and straightforward cases, will be processed quickly.
The amendments were developed in close consultation with ACT Corrective Services and the Human Rights Commission. The streamlined provisions comply with the Human Rights Act and provide transparency in the context of administrative decisions made by corrections staff and procedural fairness for detainees. The amended provisions retain a detainee right to seek a review of disciplinary action and will now allow the director-general to review a disciplinary decision at her own motion if appropriate.
Parallel to the legislative changes I have introduced today, ACT Corrective Services will make complementary improvements to their detainee discipline policy and related procedural tools. These improvements will give decision makers guidance on consistent penalties for detainees who breach discipline. The improvements will include information for correctional officers on suitable penalties based on the nature of the breach.
I now turn to the remaining amendments in the bill. These amendments provide for several important technical changes relating to detainees sentenced to periodic detention and the governance of the Sentence Administration Board under the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act.
The second amendment will prohibit holiday exclusions applying to offenders who do not consistently attend periodic detention for a number of periods. At present, the act provides that offenders serving periodic detention are deemed to have attended a periodic detention period where those periods include a holiday, such as Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. In effect, this provision excludes all periodic detention detainees from their reporting obligations on these holidays.
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