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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-05-31 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Prisoner Rehabilitation

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:20): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Correctional Services a question regarding prisoner rehabilitation.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: In South Australia, for some crimes a prisoner must undertake mandatory rehabilitation prior to being assessed by the Parole Board for parole. In an opinion piece in February this year in The Advertiser, Mr Tony Rossi, President of the Law Society, said:

Prison overcrowding becomes self-perpetuating.

Many prisoners cannot complete mandatory rehabilitation courses because the waiting list is too long. This keeps prisoners in jail for longer and increases overcrowding.

A similar warning was given by the Parole Board chief Frances Nelson QC in February 2016:

Prisoners who genuinely want to turn their lives around are languishing in jail for up to a year because they cannot access court-ordered rehabilitation programs, the state's Parole Board chief warns today.

My question to the minister is: why aren't all prisoners given an opportunity to complete their mandatory rehabilitation programs before their non-parole periods are finished?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:21): I thank the honourable member for his question. It is a question that speaks to a subject that I am very proud of; that is, the work the government is doing and remains committed to doing into the future so as to maximise the likelihood of someone not reoffending in the community. I think I have spoken in this place on a number of occasions about the fact that the government has set a bold and ambitious strategy to reduce reoffending in South Australia and it starts with this government committing itself to a target to reduce the rate of reoffending in South Australia by 10 per cent by the year 2020.

Already, South Australia is a national leader when it comes to rehabilitation and that is proven and demonstrated by the fact that we are ahead of the national average when it comes to the most universally accepted reoffending statistic, which is a return to corrections within two years of release. The South Australian reoffending rate is currently 46 per cent. The national reoffending rate, I believe, sits around 50 to 51 per cent, so we are performing better than the national average. We have to be more ambitious than just resting on our laurels. We have to look to the future to see what we can do to see that number come down.

We have committed ourselves to a target. We have put in place a strategic policy panel, which provided a report to me already last year. At the moment, as we speak, the government is preparing its response to that strategic policy panel report, which will put in place a set of policies to realise the target of reducing the rate of reoffending. It is a no-brainer, and I think Mr Rossi's article that the Hon. Mr Ridgway refers to has a lot of merit in the arguments that are put forward through it. I have met with Mr Rossi since the article appeared in The Advertiser and we share a passion and the government and the Law Society share a commitment and a desire to see the number coming down.

If we are able to realise a reduction in the rate of reoffending it will mean two key things. For those of us who are wanting to save taxpayers' money, it will result in an extraordinary saving by virtue of the fact that locking people up costs somewhere in the order of $100,000 per annum. It is a very substantial expense. Building new prison beds is also an astonishingly expensive enterprise.

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: It used to be only 70 grand.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: The Hon. Mr Brokenshire interjects and refers to statistics that must be many, many years old, from a long, long time ago—

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: You've got to rein your costs in.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: —when he was last in government.

The PRESIDENT: The honourable minister, don't respond to the interjections of the Hon. Mr Brokenshire.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: The other key virtue of achieving a reduction in the rate of reoffending, apart from the substantial saving, which is good for the government fiscally, of course, is a reduction in the amount of crime happening within the community. If someone gets out of custody and goes into the community and does not reoffend whereas they otherwise might, that is a reduction in a crime statistic. That means one less victim in the community who has suffered all the disruption that is associated with any act of crime. So, we remain committed to that reduction.

The Hon. Mr Ridgway talks about efforts in terms of programs that are provided to prisoners that could contribute to a decision by the Parole Board in and around parole. Last year, the state government already announced a very substantial increase in investments when it comes to criminogenic programs provided in the prison, many of which would provide, potentially, an opportunity for an inmate, or for a prisoner, to get access to a program which could therefore influence the Parole Board's decision.

From memory—and I am happy to double-check this statistic—that was a $9.9 million investment in criminogenic programs. That is a very substantial increase in the amount of money that this state government is investing in providing prisoners with programs so as to prevent the sort of thing that the Hon. Mr Ridgway refers to in this question.

We are committed to making sure prisoners get the rehabilitation they need, so that once they get out they don't reoffend, which means a safer community and a very substantial saving to the taxpayer.

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