Home Detention

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:01): My question is to the Minister for Corrections and follows from my question on Tuesday of this week. What, if any, were the consequences for the individuals who were detected to be tampering with their electronic monitoring bracelet or anklet devices, as recently reported on Channel 7 News? For example, when they were detected, were they subject to further sanctions, and if so, what form did those sanctions take?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (15:01): I thank the honourable member for their question and their ongoing commitment to community safety around this issue in particular. Naturally, of course, I have been making inquiries in light of the Channel 7 report that occurred the other evening regarding home detention breaches. I refer to the ministerial statement I have already given today, which goes to what I am doing and what the department is doing to make sure that such events do not occur in the future, or that if they do occur they are picked up by the system.

Regarding what occurs in the event that a breach is detected, the answer really depends on the type of home detention they are on, so allow me to go into a bit of detail. If a person is on intensive bail supervision—and this, I am advised, is the majority of offenders who are on home detention—then the bail authority is indeed a court itself. In that instance, Corrections reports to SAPOL, and a breach of bail is possibly a new criminal offence in its own right and they are reported back to the court.

A second scenario is someone who is on home detention, as distinct from intensive bail supervision. If this is the case, the report is provided to a senior manager within the Department for Correctional Services. The Department for Correctional Services determines if a person is required to be returned to custody, so that is an option that is available in that instance. If that is determined, that will be effective immediately, and Corrections or SAPOL will return the person to custody. That is an option that is available.

Thirdly, if a person is on parole, and one of the conditions of parole is them being issued with electronic monitoring, then Corrections provides a minute to the Parole Board. The Parole Board then determines what action to take and could indeed issue a Parole Board warrant for their arrest. Critically—I think this is the important thing—in each of those three instances, whether they be on intensive bail supervision, on home detention or on parole for electrical monitoring, if a breach of their conditions occurs, it can have the consequence of incarceration.

I think it would be a reasonable expectation of the community that a reprimand be put in place if someone does breach. In some instances, that is a decision before the department for corrections, but in other instances, of course, it is a decision of the court, or indeed a decision of the Parole Board. Of course, as minister I do not seek to intervene in any of those instances. I should not be intervening in Parole Board decisions, nor should I be intervening in decisions of the court or operational decisions of DCS, but importantly any breach in any of those three instances can result in a person being incarcerated and I have been advised that, on at least one occasion where a breach has been detected and been known to occur, that has resulted in a person being put back into custody.