Page 4422 - Week 12 - Thursday, 26 October 2017
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This bill acknowledges the recommendations made in these reports. Our custodial facilities must operate at the high standards that our community rightly expects. The government is committed to implementing transformational change to the way people deprived of their liberty are treated in the ACT. Correctional centres by their very nature cause a power imbalance between the people that maintain the environment and the people detained there. Due to the inability to largely control their day-to-day decisions, those detained in correctional centres are some of our community’s most vulnerable.
These vulnerabilities are amplified because of the closed nature of correctional institutions. They pose unique accountability challenges, particularly in relation to public transparency of operations. As a result, the government must ensure that the independent oversight of correctional facilities and services is adequate and effective. While the ACT is still a relatively new and small jurisdiction with regard to managing prisons, our detainee cohort has changed dramatically in just over a decade: detainee numbers have increased, detainee complexities have increased and detainee needs have increased.
The ACT has one of the most comprehensive oversight regimes of correctional centres in Australia. The work of the Human Rights Commission—including the Human Rights Commissioner, the Discrimination Commissioner, the Children and Young People Commissioner, the Public Advocate, the Disability and Community Services Commissioner and the Health Services Commissioner—the Ombudsman, the Auditor-General, official visitors and the adjudicator under the Corrections Management Act is invaluable to ensuring that the quality of decision making and complaint handling by ACT corrective services is adequate, sensitive to individual detainee needs and in accordance with human rights. However, as identified in the Moss review, the importance of a systematic preventive oversight mechanism cannot be overstated.
In order to protect against harm occurring a proactive inspection regime is required. Such a role acts as a more effective prevention measure than simply responding to allegations of harm once they have occurred. The establishment of an inspector of correctional services through this bill aims to meet this need. The role of the inspector of correctional services has been developed following stakeholder feedback and consideration of existing models in Western Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania.
With oversight of ACT correctional centres, youth detention places, court cells and detainee transport, the inspector of correctional services will: undertake inspections of correctional centres and services every two years against a review framework; review critical incidents to ensure that policies, procedures and legislation promote best practice; undertake the review of a particular issue in the youth or adult corrections environment referred by the responsible minister or director-general, to ensure that policies, procedures and legislation promote best practice; be able to conduct an unannounced visit in accordance with the role; provide independent reports to the ACT Legislative Assembly; and, if appropriate and practicable, consult with people or use staff suitable to the cultural background or vulnerability of any detainee involved
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