“That respective Ministers for Corrections, Aboriginal Affairs, Women and Human Rights have benignly ignored for four years a raft of recommendations made by the inspector of corrections illustrates the low priority accorded to the needs and rehabilitation of detainees, including women, in the AMC,” writes JON STANHOPE.

THE Justice and Community Safety Directorate has released a paper titled: ”Walking with Women on the Pathway to Change”. It’s sub-titled: “Working together to reduce reoffending and meet the needs of women. A framework for ACT Corrective Services”.

The release of the paper was seemingly timed to coincide with the decision to relocate women detained in the AMC from the utterly unacceptable accommodation they have been forced to endure for the last five years, in the midst of male prisoners, to the cottages that were designed specifically for women when the AMC was built.

The women were forced, five years ago, to vacate the cottages to make way for men convicted of pedophilia or other sex crimes.

Anyone interested in the management of the AMC would be aware of the recommendations made by the inspector of corrections, Mr Neil McAllister, four years ago about the unsuitability of the accommodation women were being forced to endure.

The inspector’s scarifying criticism included the following observations: “The 2017 decision to move the female detainees from the women’s community centre to a high-security, male accommodation block was at odds with the design philosophy of the AMC and recognised best practice in the care and management of women in detention.”

He also advised that the accommodation in which they were forced to reside: “Exposes women with histories of domestic and family violence or sexual assault to the possibility of re-traumatisation due either to the location, or the necessity to walk past male accommodation areas when accessing the clinic, education or visits.”

That respective Ministers for Corrections, Aboriginal Affairs, Women and Human Rights have benignly ignored for four years these and a raft of other recommendations made by the inspector illustrates the low priority accorded to the needs and rehabilitation of detainees, including women, in the AMC.

The “Pathway to Change Report” is well researched and written, if somewhat turgid. Indeed, it has the feel of a PhD thesis about it and I fear that almost no one will bother to read it or that any of the wisdom it imparts will ever be applied.

There are, to be fair, a number of thought-provoking assertions contained in the paper. It is claimed, for example, in defence of the non-availability of an unspecified range of specialist services in the ACT that it is due to it being ”a small jurisdiction both in land mass and population”. 

It would be interesting to know which “specialist services” relevant to the management of corrective services are not available in the ACT because of the claimed limited “land mass” of the territory.

I was also taken by the confident assertion of the report’s authors that: “The ACT “Building Communities not Prisons” initiative brings together a range of strength-based supports and inclusive pathways that lead to better life outcomes for people cycling in and out of custody. These include evidence-based programs focused on addressing the root causes of offending, improving sentence management, and increasing capacity for more targeted and individual service responses.”

Really? My difficulty with this raft of claims is that they are not supported in the report, as far as I can see, by a single example, statement of fact or pertinent data. 

In fact, the data tells a very different story. For example the ACT is, despite the much vaunted “Building Communities not Prisons” initiative, experiencing the highest increase in Aboriginal incarceration in Australia; has the highest rate ratio of indigenous incarceration in Australia and Aboriginal peoples imprisoned in the ACT have the highest rate of recidivism in Australia. 

How can this be? The answer is almost certainly because the ACT government has simply not done the sorts of things which this report highlights as of central importance in the rehabilitation of prisoners and their reintegration into society.

I will point to two of the most obvious examples, both of which are identified in the “Pathway” report. Firstly, the need to deal with drug and alcohol addiction, which afflicts a majority of detainees, and to ensure that detainees exiting prison have access to secure and appropriate housing.

In relation to drug rehabilitation services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the ACT government identified this as a priority in 2007/08 and provided funding for the construction and operation of an Aboriginal-specific drug and alcohol residential rehabilitation facility. Fourteen years on and the service still does not exist.

On the indigenous housing front, Ms Julie Tongs, CEO of Winnunga Nimmityjah, has over the last six years advocated strongly and repeatedly for the development of an Aboriginal-specific housing strategy and an Aboriginal community-controlled housing service.

It is notable that in June, 2017, a paper released by the government under the authority of the Minister for Housing, Ms Yvette Berry, contained the following commitment: “The government is very aware of the desire within the community to establish a local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Housing Organisation.

“The ACT government is committed to working with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body and the wider community to identify opportunities to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Housing Organisation.”

It is now four years since that commitment was made and I am not aware that it has progressed in any meaningful way.

Jon Stanhope was chief minister from 2001 to 2011 and represented Ginninderra for the Labor Party from 1998. He is the only chief minister to have governed with a majority in the Assembly.