A private company and the Australian Protective Service are vying to provide an electronic jail for the ACT, according to Independent MLA Michael Moore.
The electronic jail is a computer-monitoring system of prisoners in their home. The monitoring is either done by electronic bracelet or by random computer telephone checks.
Mr Moore said yesterday that the Legislative Assembly must decide whether a jail was to be public or private.
The company, Wormald, had put a proposal to ACT Corrective Services, he said.
The director of Corrective Services, Peter Chivers, said that the ACT Government have received a number of proposals about correction facilities and security in the ACT since the issuing of the “”Paying the Price” report in February.
These had included a full jail, home detention, security in all ACT buildings and so on.
However, the ACT Government had not overtly sought them, as policy decisions had not yet been made. He expected a full government response to the report and the resulting public discussion during the Budget process.
Mr Moore said he had visited a new publicly funded Lotus Glen jail in Mareeba, north Queensland.
“”The trouble with private prisons is that the emphasis is on profit, not rehabilitation,” he said.
If rehabilitation were too successful, the private prisons would be out of a job. it was not appropriate for prisons, with their large element of social policy, to be in the private sector.
After looking at Lotus Glen he thought that the public-sector could do it better and cheaper. He was impressed with its emphasis on rehabilitation.
Mr Moore was speaking after the Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, said that there was less need for a jail in the ACT because prisoner statistics showed a trend downwards and that the ACT was using prison as a last resort.
The shadow attorney-general, Gary Humphries, disagreed. He said the underlying trend was for a greater number of people being sentenced to jail.
The ACT’s population was rising faster than the rest of Australia and its crime rate was going up, especially serious crime like armed robbery.
The ACT had a low rate of imprisonment because the Bench disliked sending people to NSW which had a barbaric and inhumane jail system.
The ACT should have a jail. We should not be deciding sentences on the basis of a dislike of the NSW system.
“”People should be sentenced according to the seriousness of the crime,” he said. “”If they deserved jail they should get jail.”
An ACT jail might be expensive, but “”we just have to wear it” in the interests of community safety.
With new management systems a single ACT jail could take all types of prisoners. A private-sector jail could house prisoners for less per head than the ACT spent now in sending prisoners to NSW. In fact, the ACT could take some NSW prisoners and make a profit.
“”Mr Connolly is just preparing us for having no decision in this budget for a jail,” he said.
The ACT Chief Magistrate, Ron Cahill, said it was inevitable the ACT would get a jail sooner or later. The Government should weigh up the relative economic and social costs. He supported having an ACT jail because the ACT community could control its prisoners and could adopt innovative practices which were not possible when prisoners were sent to NSW.
The jail could be a gradual process, starting with the lower-security prisoners and working up. Maximum security prisoners might serve the first part of their sentences in NSW and then return to the ACT for the last part.
Mr Cahill rejected the criticism that, if there were a jail, magistrates and judges would only fill it up for the sake of it.
“”Sometimes people have to be sent to jail,” he said. “”That decision would be made whether the person was to be sent to an ACT or NSW jail.”
He thought the option of building a jail should be taken off the back-burner and some planning started, even if it were not built immediately.
He did not want to enter the debate as to whether it should be a private or public-sector jail.