Inmates need to learn and earn.

As a result, the prisoners at the Alexander Maconochie Centre are often left to share jobs and are given less access to training programs that help to prevent them from reoffending than is offered in interstate prisons.

Victims of Crime Assistance League NSW vice-president Howard Brown said Canberra's prisoners should be earning qualifications in brick laying, plumbing and electrical work to give the community greater protection from repeat offending when inmates were released.

The ACT's high rate of recidivism, which sees nearly half the prisoners released from the AMC returning within two years, is second worst in the country.

Prisoners Aid ACT president Brian Turner said there were plans for industry-scale workshops in the original designs for the jail but they had never come to fruition.

"It's one of our few complaints about the prison – that there are inadequate opportunities for doing useful work as opposed to educational kinds of programs of which there are some but the problem is not enough,'' he said.

"We get lots of complaints from prisoners and ex-prisoners about the lack of industries. They have opportunities to do some gardening and horticulture work but nothing of the manufacturing industry kind of thing.''

Mr Brown said the community would benefit from industrial work at the prison. "We know that the root cause of a lot of crime is a lack of employment,'' he said.

"If you have people who are chronically unemployed there's often a history of drug or alcohol abuse. You have to run the programs side by side – to get them off the drugs and alcohol and teach them a trade they can use. You need to do that to have a chance of stopping recidivism.

"Prison needs to be about punishment and rehabilitation and you cannot have one without the other. In NSW there is work release so they can get to the point they are properly qualified and have the experience that makes them work ready. If they are sitting around twiddling their thumbs with no chance of employment they start to think, 'I might knock over a servo'. Without those trade qualifications and industries you are dooming them to failure.''

The Sunday Canberra Times revealed in March that repeat offenders were costing the ACT an estimated $10 million-plus a year in court and police costs.

The Justice and Community Safety Directorate annual report showed nearly 47 per cent of detainees released from the AMC in 2010-11 had returned to the jail within two years.

ACT Minister for Corrections Shane Rattenbury said low-risk detainees approaching release who were housed in the Transitional Release Centre could undertake paid employment or work experience as part of the work-release program.

However, none of the jobs available inside the AMC were classified as an apprenticeship or traineeship.

"The government is exploring industry options for the AMC as it is recognised that having greater employment available in the AMC will mean detainees are generally more engaged and better prepared for release,'' he said.

"However, the development of prison industry needs to be managed carefully to ensure the prison has appropriate industry space, suitable detainee numbers and adequate resourcing to undertake industry and that any industry does not negatively impact upon existing local businesses."

Mr Rattenbury said the 2014 Report on Government Services 2012-13 period stated that 82.5 per cent of inmates participated in employment programs in jail compared with the national average of 74.4 per cent.

More than 80 per cent took part in education programs, compared with the national average of just 33.1 per cent.

Mr Rattenbury said there were about 30 jobs prisoners could do inside the jail including barber, barista and domestic cleaner.

However, Mr Brown said there was little point of barber training because prisoners would need to pass a working with children test to work in hairdressing in the community and many would fail.