Page 757 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 March 2019
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detainees and staff is of paramount importance. Corrective Services takes a proactive and dynamic approach to identify and respond to potential tension within the AMC. Funding of $8.8 million has been allocated over the next 3½ years as part of the 2017-18 budget funding pool to boost security measures at the AMC. This has included employing additional senior staff to manage security, accommodation and detainee services. It allows the increased management of security and separation issues as well as providing greater protection to vulnerable detainees and the management of tensions between individuals and groups. This funding also supports a dedicated intelligence unit to proactively manage threats to security, including contraband, organised crime and violent extremism.
Despite these measures, unfortunately within correctional centres there always remains an inherent potential for conflict amongst detainees. Often there are pre-existing tensions in the relationships between detainees at the AMC resulting from interactions and associations both in custody but also in the community. Dynamics between detainees is something that ACT Corrective Services staff manage carefully in consultation with individual detainees and also based on intelligence and risk.
The first critical incident review provides assurance that the critical incident was not reasonably foreseeable by Corrective Services and makes 10 findings and one recommendation for the ACT government to consider. The findings of the report have all been noted and provide assurance that Corrective Services responded to this critical incident appropriately and complied with relevant policies and procedures when responding.
The ACT government notes the comments made by the inspector about clarifying sections 17(2) and 27 of the act respectively and will further consult on how the further interpretation of the act can be strengthened. If necessary, legislative reform will be progressed to address these matters. In the meantime Corrective Services will prepare guidance protocols in consultation with the inspector to clarify potential areas of ambiguity within the act. This will involve updating the existing memorandum of understanding between ACT Inspector of Correctional Services and ACT Corrective Services concerning critical incidents. As a new piece of legislation and oversight function, the ACT government continues to work closely in consultation with the inspector on the operation of the act.
The ACT government has agreed in principle to the recommendation made in the review that suggests that ACT Corrective Services policies and procedures should be reviewed so that in the event of injury or illness affecting an Indigenous detainee, where possible and appropriate, a person of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent notify the next of kin of the detainee. Corrective Services are finalising a review of all policies and procedures as part of a comprehensive reform program. This review process addresses the need for a definition of strict protection and references the Indigenous liaison officer or Indigenous case manager in relevant policy documents.
I acknowledge previous comments highlighting the importance of next of kin notifications in both the national report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1999 and the Moss review in 2016. Corrective Services policies
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