Page 3888 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 25 September 2019
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Mrs Jones raised the issue of a female detainee being able to see her accused attacker. I acknowledge that that may well have happened; I do not dispute the assertion and I am sure that that was distressing for the female involved. It is colourful for Mrs Jones to insert that into her narrative, but that could have happened under the previous accommodation arrangements. The Hume Health Centre is in the middle of the AMC, and if a woman had been escorted from the cottages to the Hume Health Centre she may have had the same interaction. That does not diminish the fact that it may have been distressing for her, but Mrs Jones is suggesting that this is a direct result of the move of accommodation. We need to be factual about what we are talking about here.
I acknowledge that this move has not been without its challenges, and I am not suggesting it has been perfect. I speak regularly with non-government service providers, women’s services, advocates and oversight agencies and I have been made aware of some of the concerns raised by Mrs Jones. Indeed, some of these issues have been publicly articulated by the Inspector of Correctional Services, and the government’s response to his report is publicly available.
I have also met with current and former detainees, women with lived experience of incarceration, and I have listened to their views with respect. I have spent time sitting with them in the new accommodation area and I believe I have had the opportunity to take on board their genuine feedback on the conditions. They have raised experiences with me that I have found worrying. I have personally directed changes and improvements to be prioritised at the AMC so that we take on board that feedback and deal with it urgently.
Both I and ACT Corrective Services remain committed to addressing further issues that come up and providing the safest possible accommodation. As the AMC includes both male and female detainees within its security environment Corrective Services has to manage a number of risks. It achieves this through dynamic security arrangements and detainee management strategies to limit interaction and to protect the rights and safety of each detainee.
I should take some time to speak on the specifics of the security incident in April this year; it is deeply regrettable that an incident of this nature occurred. I note that the detainees in question were able to coordinate the incident in such a way as to allow them to have unsupervised contact in a restricted zone, away from both male and female compounds. This is not acceptable in the AMC environment. Corrective Services takes its responsibilities to provide a safe and secure facility at the AMC very seriously and it took immediate steps to strengthen security procedures to reduce the potential for another incident.
As Mrs Jones is aware, in response to this incident the Executive Director of Corrective Services commissioned an internal management review, through the issuing of terms of reference and the appointment of a reviewer. I reassure members that an internal management review is a genuinely investigative processes that has strong and practical outcomes for policy, practice and infrastructure.
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