Page 2208 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 9 May 2012
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restates the government’s commitment to bail laws that properly balance the presumption of innocence on the one hand with the right of the community to be safe and for justice to be done on the other.
The final response also proposes minor and important amendments to division 2.4 of the Bail Act that the government believes will develop a process for the courts to assess bail applications under section 9C that is compatible with human rights principles. These are important changes and I am seeking the views of justice stakeholders on the government’s position.
I recognise that the motion before the Assembly today is concerned with two important questions: first, the important purposes served by bail and, second, the important roles law enforcement agencies have in making certain, as much as possible, that those on bail adhere to conditions imposed by the court.
In the ACT a number of agencies work together to support and monitor adults and young people subject to bail conditions. ACT Corrective Services, the Community Services Directorate and a number of community agencies support many people subject to bail, with a view to making sure that they do not breach their bail conditions. Where a person is in breach, ACT Corrective Services, Community Services and ACT Policing take steps to bring them before the court. Of course prosecutors in the office of the DPP will also appear before the court to make representations on behalf of the Crown. The government recognises that each of these agencies must work together to ensure that tensions inherent in questions about bail do not lead to undue concern for the community.
Turning to the role of police, ACT Policing have a range of proactive strategies in relation to bail compliance and the reporting of breaches of bail conditions. In the first instance, where bail is granted by the police or the courts, an alert will be entered into ACT Policing’s PROMIS system that sets out bail conditions. Officers will also enter alerts into PROMIS where bail conditions are breached. Patrol officers undertake compliance checks on a daily basis to ensure that bail conditions are being met. These compliance checks occur at all hours of the day and night where dictated by the types of bail conditions proposed. For example, ensuring that someone is abiding by curfew conditions will require police to undertake night-time compliance checking. Information is distributed to police patrols on a regular basis for those individuals who are in breach of bail or who have outstanding warrants, including timely notifications for persons newly found to be in breach. ACT Policing’s intelligence gathering activities conduct specific target analysis and provide briefings about persons currently and newly found to be in breach of bail to policing patrols and other operational units within ACT Policing, such as the criminal investigations area.
Operation Neapolis continues in all operations of ACT Policing and involves the specific targeting of identified recidivist offenders, including those in breach of bail. This is combined with other strategies such as location and traffic targeting. Indeed we can point to the very significant reductions in property crime and attribute that in a significant part to the efforts of ACT Policing to ensure that those people previously charged with property crime offences are not reoffending or in breach of their bail. The strict enforcement of bail conditions is one of the key factors in ensuring the very
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