The ACT Ombudsman has released a report of his own motion investigation into ACT Corrective Services’ administration of parole at the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC).
The Ombudsman, Michael Manthorpe, said his investigation followed a number of concerns raised by detainees, service providers and Official Visitors about parole processes in the ACT and administrative failures.
“These have resulted in some detainees unnecessarily remaining in prison beyond their earliest release date,” Mr Manthorpe said.
He said that during his investigation, he identified broader concerns about the way the ACT Corrective Services conducted their parole processes.
He said these concerns related to the information available to detainees about the parole process; the level of preparedness of detainees and the support provided to them to participate in that process; the natural justice afforded detainees during the parole application process and their access to legal representation; and the accuracy and completeness of the information provided to the Sentence Administration Board for it to consider when making decisions on parole applications.
“Our Office considered this investigation a priority as, in the parole context, even the smallest administrative failure has the potential to result in a detainee unnecessarily remaining in prison beyond their earliest release date,” Mr Manthorpe said.
“We recognise the complexity of the work involved in ACT Corrective Services’ (ACTCS) administration of parole and the various challenges at the AMC”, he said.
We support the ACTCS vision of a ‘holistic integrated offender management model which seeks to enhance rehabilitation and integrative efforts’
“However, it is of concern to our Office that … ACTCS has been operating its parole and sentence management functions in the absence of a comprehensive and transparent policy framework
The Ombudsman found that the rehabilitation of male detainees at the AMC – as the Auditor-General before him had previously identified – AMC planning for rehabilitation was ineffective as there was “no rehabilitation planning framework, no evaluation framework and no finalised case management policy framework”.
The Ombudsman made 15 recommendations, each one of which was agreed to by the Justice and Community Safety Directorate and ACT Corrective Services.
The Ombudsman’s 48-page report Parole processes at the Alexander Maconochie Centre can be accessed at this PS News link.
