Home Detention

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:00): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Corrections regarding anklet detection bracelets.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Members may be aware that last night on the television news Channel 7 reported some disturbing information that a number of people who had been subject to home detention orders by the courts, and therefore are required to wear bracelets that can track their whereabouts, have actually discovered a way of bypassing the tracking devices on those bracelets. According to the story at least, it is as simple as wrapping the device in alfoil. Apparently that therefore prevents the signal going back to the base station and these people are therefore untraceable. My questions are:

1. Can the minister confirm that it is actually the case that there are people who are subject to home detention orders who are able to leave their houses as they choose if they wrap their bracelet or anklet, as it may be, in alfoil? If so, how many instances or individuals have been detected by Corrections for doing that and, indeed, are Corrections confident that they are aware of all the individuals doing it or are there some that are currently undetected?

2. If this is all true and accurate, what is the government's plan to fix this problem?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (15:02): I would like to thank the Hon. Mr Hood for his questions. I know he has a passion for community safety, which is one that I share. What I would say from the outset is that home detention remains an incredibly important tool when it comes to keeping our community safe. Many members would already be aware that the cost of incarcerating people is incredibly expensive to the South Australian taxpayer, and sometimes the court will deem it appropriate to use home detention as a means to ensure community safety when a member of our community has done something wrong. I can inform Mr Hood and the public more generally that there are currently 612 people in South Australia who are on home detention.

The report last night at first glance would, of course, cause some concern amongst some people in the public if indeed it was true and that one could simply put alfoil on their bracelet and start walking around the community, but not surprisingly there is a little bit more to it than that. It is the case, I am advised, that alfoil can have the capacity to interfere with a signal; however, it is also true that there are a whole range of other technologies in place to ensure that community safety is preserved in an instance when someone tries to pull such a stunt.

For starters, there is a radiofrequency unit installed in an offender's home that can detect whether the individual is within range. If an offender tampers with their ankle unit, for instance, by trying to put alfoil on the unit, a tamper alert is immediately raised, just as if a person on home detention tried to cut off their ankle bracelet. As soon as that alert is raised, it is straightaway transmitted to the Intensive Compliance Unit, which obviously operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year.

Put simply, if someone who is on home detention tries to put alfoil on their ankle bracelet, it will immediately alert the Intensive Compliance Unit, who will then start actioning accordingly. I am currently in the process of trying to seek an answer which would answer Mr Hood's more specific question on how many times this has occurred in recent months. I am happy to share that information with Mr Hood and the public more broadly once that is drawn to my attention. I will take that part of the question on notice.

I am assured by the Department for Correctional Services that the community at large are not put at risk by those people who are on home detention who seek to leave their premises. An alert is raised, and there are substantial consequences for someone who does try to pull on such a stunt. They can be found to be in breach of their home detention orders, which could indeed result in them going back into custody or being incarcerated. Rarely does this occur, I am advised, but I am happy to get the specific information that Mr Hood asked for and bring that back to the chamber.