It is unfortunate that the closest jail to the Act is Goulburn Jail … the toughest NSW has to offer. People sentenced to jail in the ACT often go to Goulburn because it is close and families can visit them more easily. However, most of the prisoners from the ACT who go to Goulburn are not sentenced for the most serious or most violent offences. The result is low-security prisoners in a maximum-security, violent jail. The results are to very satisfactory as events last weekend showed when a man doing a six-month non-parole period was bashed … his jaw broken, stitches above his eye and bruising. He is apparently too scared to identify his attackers, so the cycle of violence is likely to continue unpunished.
At present the ACT has at maximum weekend detention. It does not have facility for a full-time jail. However, if bashing like last weekend’s continue, the option becomes more palatable, despite other drawbacks such as a greater propensity to use a jail if it is there … though this temptation will be reduced now that the ACT has a weekend jail as an alternative..
As the ACT gets bigger it may become inevitable to have a minimum-security jail. Maximum-security prisoners who could not be housed there would go to Goulburn, which would be appropriate for that category of prisoner as well as on geographic grounds.
It is unacceptable that prisoners sent to NSW get exposed to the dangers seen last weekend. People are sent to prison to be locked up, not beaten up.