Page 3620 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 22 October 2013
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Some of these examples include Tasmania, New South Wales and the Northern Territory.
Tasmania has significantly reduced recidivism and prison expenditure by focusing heavily on community corrections as a viable and robust alternative to custodial sentencing. This work has been informed by collaboration with the courts and other stakeholders and has seen a renewed focus on rehabilitation and increased program integrity, earning the trust and respect of the magistrates.
Similarly, New South Wales has moved away from options such as periodic detention and is now focused on alternative sentencing, such as drug courts and electronic surveillance for certain types of offences.
In the Northern Territory, they are focused much more on industry and employment opportunities for detainees. In fact, they have named this approach “sentenced to a job” and have had initial encouraging signs of breaking the cycle of reoffending by offering education and training that is linked to actual employment.
I would also like to underline the principle of justice reinvestment, something supported by both the Labor and Greens parties. Put simply, this is the idea that investment in reducing offending behaviour and the drivers for those behaviours reduces the cost to society and the government in the longer term.
I am open to reviewing all of these ideas, and more, in the context of our own unique circumstances in the ACT.
We must also and at the same time consider what investment can be made in reducing crime, in increasing community safety and in sustainable models of rehabilitation. We, as a responsible government, are taking the right approach in addressing the problems in a coordinated manner, and I look forward to the valuable input of various experts and professionals.
Corrective Services cannot answer all these demands alone, and I thank the Chief Minister and my colleagues for the whole-of-government approach to what is really a whole-of-community issue. I present a copy of the statement:
Alexander Maconochie Centre—Current pressures—Ministerial statement, 22 October 2013.
I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.11): This is a disgrace. What we have just heard is a litany of excuses from the government’s chief excuse maker. It is a rewriting of history that is just quite extraordinary. The capacity problem at the jail was not unexpected. The series of reports and advice given to the government in the lead-up to the opening of the jail made it crystal clear—and I
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