Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-05-16 Daily Xml

Contents

Prison Facilities

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (14:49): Supplementary: given that, by the minister's own admission, we are talking about such a small number of people, is there capacity to allow them to serve their sentences in a community-based environment, where appropriate?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:50): Those decisions principally are made by courts around who should be serving their sentence in community or not. It is important to note that many women who find themselves in the Adelaide Women's Prison are there because they have committed serious crimes and the court has seen fit, for whatever reasons—protection of the community at large or justice being done—for those women to serve their sentence in a custodial environment. That is a decision that is, for all intents and purposes, made by a court.

Where it is appropriate, in the court's opinion or the opinion of the Parole Board, that a community-based order be put in place, then of course that can occur. But, where women are sentenced to being imprisoned in a custodial environment, then of course that needs to be abided by in the interests of community safety.