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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-09-28 Daily Xml
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Prisoner Transfers

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:55): My question is to the Minister for Correctional Services. Can the minister advise whether the frequency of prisoner transfers between correctional facilities has increased in recent years?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:55): Prisoner transfers between facilities within Corrections is not uncommon. There is a whole range of reasons people transfer from facility to facility and bed management, of course, is only one contributing factor.

The nature of the prisoner's graduation through the prison system will often determine what prison they are in. Generally speaking, when people are put into custody to serve a sentence, or if they are on remand, they will commence their sentence either in the Adelaide Remand Centre or Yatala Labour Prison. They can then graduate through the system, because of good behaviour and the like, to facilities that are of a lower security nature than places such as the remand centre and Yatala Labour Prison.

In terms of specific prisoner transfer numbers, I do not have that to hand. Prisoner transfers are, generally speaking, conducted by G4S, which has been contracted by the state government or the Department for Correctional Services to manage the actual transportations that occur between prison facilities. I am happy to get some clarification on what the numbers are regarding transportations, but these are run-of-the-mill events that happen on a daily basis.

I am also happy to ascertain whether or not there has been a particular increase in prisoner transfers. I suspect there has been somewhat of a growth in that number as a consequence of the fact—as has regularly been articulated by myself and well documented publicly—that there has been a growth in the prison population, somewhere in the order of 10 per cent, over the last financial year. We have seen an increase in the number of people coming into the state's custody and, vis-a-vis, I would expect that would result in an increased number of prisoner transfers occurring. However, again, I am happy to seek the information from G4S and bring a figure back, if it is appropriate to do so.

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