WHAT TO do with lawbreakers?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It's a problem human civilisation has grappled with for millennia.
In the past, the convicted have been ostracised, executed, crucified, flogged, tortured, maimed, locked up and even transported to far-flung corners of the globe.
While society has humanely discarded many of the previous forms of punishment, placing lawbreakers in prison has remained.
But the ACT is challenging the concept of locking up prisoners by changing the manner in which jails interact with prisoners.
Throughcare is an offender management model that covers all of the assistance given to offenders and their families by Corrective Services and other government directorates (such as health) and provides effective rehabilitation by outside agencies.
The process seeks to mould prisoners into better citizens, releasing them into society healthier than before they entered the penal system.
The transformation is accomplished by addressing the behaviours and attitudes that originally landed the detainee in jail, including substance abuse.
The process includes education programs, Therapeutic Cottages, a Transitional Release Centre and drug and alcohol counselling.
Throughcare was debated at the Reintegration Puzzle Conference last week.
The conference sought to discuss physical, mental and social health and the implications for reintegration.
Minister Chris Bourke opened the conference.
Bourke claims the ACT leads the nation in challenging law-breaking behaviour among its prison population.
''This is increasingly recognised as a best practice approach to corrections management in Australia and is something we are proud to be a part of,'' Bourke says.
''The Australian Institute of Criminology has found that throughcare leads to positive outcomes if it is coordinated and delivered as part of an integrated program designed to cater to the individual offender's needs.
''While throughcare is a model that seeks to address offender management throughout and beyond the period of supervision of an offender, I believe it is more than that.''
Bourke says the ACT Government's 2012-13 budget allocated about $1.12 million over two years to establish the Throughcare Unit and provide brokerage.
The existing model provides offenders with basic infrastructure, such as housing, income, and connection to supports and services upon release.
The expanded model will look at ways to extend that support into the community to prevent reoffending. ''For example, the funding might be used to provide family counselling for offenders who require it, or to support the purchase of tools for offenders who have trade qualifications and are re-entering the work force.''
The model calls for a greater amount of detainee freedom and trust.
But with the freedom comes responsibility, with inmates found to have abused the system penalised.
University of South Australia rehabilitation of offenders expert Dr Helen Cameron says hiccups should be expected.
Many prisoners will fail before they succeed, she says.
But the new rehabilitation programs will also require tinkering.
She says the Australian system hasn't done prisoner rehabilitation well in the past.
''Rehabilitation suggests that they go into prison and then come back out in to society in a different form,'' Cameron says.
''But [the system doesn't] actually do that, many end up worse by the time they come out.''
She describes the current Australian system as a ''lock them up, do time then release them'' model.
In the process, the detainee may learn new - undesirable - skills or pick up fresh emotional baggage that gets them in trouble on the outside.
''Prisons are not rehabilitative, let's face it,'' Cameron says. ''Rehabilitation is a process that takes more than imprisonment, with a bunch of other thugs.
''A typical young prisoner who ends up in the can might get bashed, sodomised and treated poorly then come out worse off.''
She says the offender is then caught in a spiralling cycle.
''Many prisoners don't know how to function in society and feel safer in prison than on the outside.''
Add to the volatile mix a lack of and distrust of education, dysfunctional family backgrounds, and substance abuse.
It makes the process of learning social and educational skills a tightrope walk.
''If they can do that there's some chance they may be rehabilitated.''
There are bound to be setbacks for each prisoner.
''There's always going to be things that go wrong with the transition but that doesn't mean the process is wrong.
''The process is good if it helps these people learn skills, helps them find a way to function that's different to the way they learnt to function in the past.''
University of Canberra senior lecturer Dr Lorana Bartels says limiting the culture shock of being back in society also smooths the transition after release.
This is where the ACT's Transitional Release Centre helps prisoners by providing them with some of the freedom of society with the structure of the penal system.
''It's a huge culture shock to go from being in custody to being out in the community.
''Often prisoners have very little support so it's very easy for them to go back to offending behaviour.
''So if you have a halfway measure, where there's supervision, a bit of hand-holding, then you give the offenders the support they need so when they're released into the community they won't reoffend and they'll have those skills.''
But the model isn't cheap, with recent studies finding the AMC to be the most expensive jail, per prisoner per day, in Australia.
A Productivity Commission Report, published in January 2011, found the total cost per prisoner per day in the ACT is about $700.
The figure is about $400 more per prisoner per day than the national average.
But Bartels says it's money well spent, as it saves policing, legal and welfare costs in the long term.
Bartels says a similar proactive model operating in the Victorian court system was found to save the community more than $2.50 for every $1 spent.
Despite the tangible return, Bartels says of lot of crime prevention is impossible to quantify.
''If you can prevent someone going out and committing 10 burglaries or several rapes, you can't put a dollar figure on that.
''To turn lives around and help them become functional members of society should be the core objective.
''In the main, society will benefit more from having people come out of prison skilled up, even if that means there needs to be a small effort.''