Page 922 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 March 2016
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What are we doing in practical terms to slow the growth in detainee numbers? In February this Assembly passed legislative changes that will introduce a new order—an intensive correction order—which will give the courts an option to sentence offenders to a term of imprisonment to be served in the community. Unlike periodic or weekend detention, it will involve very strict supervision conditions that are designed not just to keep an offender out of prison but to change mindsets and lifestyles.
It will include swift and certain sanctions designed to reframe an offender’s view of self-responsibility and consequence. It will involve breach processes that make an offender swiftly accountable if they fail to comply with the conditions of an order. It will involve reward for success as well as sanctions, including short periods of imprisonment, for failure. It will be burdensome and a real challenge for an offender on such an order, but we expect that for those who meet the challenge it will be both beneficial and life changing.
Restorative justice initiatives were also a feature of that February legislation. The legislation passed in February addressed the key features of the government’s justice reform program. This program has developed from two separate but interlinked strategies established in 2014: the justice reform strategy and the justice reinvestment strategy. The justice reform strategy is focusing on sentencing law and practice. The justice reinvestment strategy is developing a whole-of-government strategy aimed at reducing recidivism and diverting offenders and those at risk of becoming offenders from the justice system.
Both the new sentencing option and the expansion of the restorative justice scheme introduced by the February legislation reflect the objectives of the justice reform program. More work will follow in the next one to two years. We are also addressing recidivism through the expansion of our industries capacity at the AMC by using the savings from the AMC accommodation expansion project to build new facilities and enhance existing ones. This building work, which we expect to complete by the end of calendar year 2016, will assist to provide detainees with a more effective structured day and with a work culture and employment skills.
Our extended through-care program, another initiative to address recidivism, continues to impact in a significant way on the lives of recently released detainees. It will be the subject of a comprehensive evaluation in the near future, and I look forward to seeing the review outcomes.
It is important that we continue to look at the causes and our responses to offending. It is important that we never rely on the prison system alone to address offending behaviour. I am very proud of the work I have done in the corrections portfolio. I feel we have given Corrective Services the support it needs to do its job well. While I am really pleased by the success of the accommodation expansion project, I also want to ensure that, through appropriate investment in justice services and other areas of government service delivery, this is the last expansion of the AMC. That will be a significant focus for me in the year ahead.
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