Prisoner Numbers

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (14:38): My question is to the Minister for Correctional Services: will the minister advise the council when was the last date that surge capacity was not relied upon to house prisoners in the custody of the Department for Correctional Services?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:39): I do not have that date at hand, but what I can share with the chamber and the honourable member—and this fact is well known within the community and to anyone who has been paying attention to my remarks for the time that I have had the pleasure of holding this office—is that, of course, there is a significant strain on the prison system in regard to the number of beds.

We have a strategy in place to be able to deal with the demand on the number of beds within our prison system. The short-term strategy is that we have some immediate builds being undertaken. We have other builds being undertaken in the medium term, at a substantial cost to the South Australian taxpayer, and in the long term our strategy is to reduce the rate of reoffending.