Page 4354 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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there are times when we need to try to take that longer-term decision to make an investment now that we know will pay off in a couple of years. We know that it will pay us back in spades but there are sometimes political and cultural challenges in actually seeking to defer what might be the immediate response and take a long-term look at things.
I would like to conclude by simply saying that I welcome the opportunity to discuss these matters today. I think they are fascinating but also really important areas to be concentrating on. I think the motion has elicited a good discussion today. Ms Stephen-Smith, the minister with responsibility for youth justice, has moved an amendment. The Greens will be supporting that. I think it outlines some of the work that is already underway. It picks up those constraints that exist on government when it comes to issues of privacy and information sharing. I am very committed to working with the minister, with our staff and with the various agencies to continue to improve both these areas of data collection and information sharing.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (4.34): I begin by thanking Mrs Kikkert for bringing this motion before the Assembly today. I also acknowledge the work in the corrections space that my colleague Mrs Jones is doing. Unfortunately Mrs Jones had a family commitment this afternoon and has asked me to raise a number of comments relating to this issue.
It is well documented that the ACT government has been struggling with the management of the Alexander Maconochie Centre, our main corrections facility. There have been significant problems ranging from deaths to escapes and the lack of accommodation consistently plaguing the ACT. Now there is something else to add to this list. It is that we are not properly tracking youth who enter our adult corrections system.
Recidivism is one of the key indicators of the effectiveness of our justice system. Yet the ACT government does not collect adequate data on the number of sentenced young people in the ACT who go on to serve custodial sentences as adults in the Alexander Maconochie Centre. This is something the government should absolutely be doing. How can we measure the impact the government is having on rehabilitation with our youth who have a history of crime if the government does not collect verified data on whether or not they end up incarcerated as an adult?
Relying on new inmates at the AMC to self-report with no verification process is simply not enough. We want to know whether the interventions that we provide are having any impact. The ACT government should begin to track the progression of juvenile offenders into adult corrections within the territory as soon as possible. We acknowledge and appreciate that there may be some difficulties in reporting on the movement of young people into interstate corrections systems. Presently that data collection is unavailable because of difficulties in dealing with several states and their separately run corrections systems.
Perhaps this is an issue that could or should be raised at the COAG level to help track and monitor the impact of our corrections and the effectiveness of our corrections systems across the county. However, achieving this sort of reporting in the
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