Page 185 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2019
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population has been steadily, if not rapidly, increasing. In fact, last year we reached a new record high population of 507 detainees. This is 68 detainees over the designed capacity of 439, the number that the AMC is actually designed to house, and only four detainees short of what the government calls its maximum operational capacity.
It is certainly not ideal to constantly operate above the designed capacity. Design is important. As Mr McAllister, the ACT Inspector of Correctional Services, put it, and as my chart shows, the population has been steadily increasing since the opening of the facility. It is not an unusual occurrence. It is not unexpected.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Orr): Mrs Jones, that is a prop.
MRS JONES: I will pop it down.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Thank you.
MRS JONES: Can I table it?
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: If you would like to table it, you will need to seek leave.
MRS JONES: I seek leave to table the table.
Leave granted.
MRS JONES: I present the following paper:
AMC Population Growth—Copy of graph.
As Mr McAllister, the new ACT Inspector of Correctional Services, put it:
… the current accommodation at AMC … is clearly not the best environment. Basically, we have two people living in a nine-square-metre cell that was designed for one person. It is as simple as that. There are some … double cells, which were purpose-designed for two people. But putting a double bunk into a single cell is not effective design capacity. The design capacity is still for one person. Clearly, people are living in cramped accommodation. I was in a unit the other day that had 14 single cells, and there were 28 men in the unit. That is widespread, apart from the unit that the women are accommodated in, which is a bit more spacious.
It is important for facilities to have operational flexibility so that we can respond to peaks and troughs in population levels. However, the steady increase in population levels we continue to experience simply does not leave us with this flexibility. We need to know what the minister plans to do to address this issue.
I note that a feasibility study into future correctional requirements, which included accommodation options, was completed early last year. What are the findings of the study? I think it is important for the people of the ACT to know. We cannot rely on having to utilise our absolute emergency maximum capacity of 539. I imagine this
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