Page 3619 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 22 October 2013
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An oversight agency forum is held bi-monthly at the AMC as a forum to discuss and communicate issues and challenges at the AMC.
In addition, $7.3 million was allocated in the 2013-14 budget over four years to support ACT Corrective Services in effectively managing offenders on parole or court-ordered sanctions and provide additional resources to meet increases in service demand and trainee correctional officers’ expenses.
The government has provided $3 million from the 2013-14 ACT budget for design works on a prison expansion. This funding will enable the development of plans for new flexible accommodation, which I am progressing with my cabinet colleagues. We cannot afford to postpone this work.
Cabinet has also recently approved a series of roundtables to develop better understanding of the drivers for increased detainee numbers and their impact on the AMC.
I expect that these discussions will be the basis for continuing work across government to address the AMC accommodation issues.
In the next few weeks, I will be convening these roundtables with key stakeholders in the criminal justice system. The roundtables are expected to have input from ACT government ministers and key stakeholders in the criminal justice system. This work is anticipated to culminate in further cabinet consideration of options in the earliest possible time frame.
The roundtables will gather key stakeholders, seek whole-of-government engagement in identifying issues and solutions, present a snapshot of the existing pressures and known issues, share information on current and ongoing work, including the scope and nature of data collection projects and reviews, consider possible legislative, policy and procedural implications and provide options for government consideration.
I am focused on the current situation and the needs of the future.
Beyond the built form of the AMC, it is clear that the whole criminal justice system is experiencing increased demand and that these pressures are not unique to the ACT. Nearly every state and territory is currently building bigger jails and trying to better respond to the issues of offending and recidivism.
The dilemma faced by any jurisdiction considering correctional facility needs, inevitably, is: what level of investment should be made? I want to make it clear, however, that this investment should not just be focused on building more jails, which have subsequent high daily detainee costs.
As I have said, this issue is not by any means unique to the ACT. Other governments are struggling to cope with increased detainee numbers and pressures on the criminal justice system. In this context, it is essential to explore the experiences of other states and territories and consider what might have benefit for the territory.
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