The biggest challenges facing female prisoners are drug and alcohol addiction, mental health issues, and a history of domestic violence and sexual abuse, according to Corrections Minister Chris Bourke.
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Dr Bourke and other Australian ministers met in Adelaide this week, to discuss issues affecting the nation's correctional facilities.
The management and rehabilitation of female prisoners was high on the agenda, driven in part by growing numbers of female offenders over the past decade.
The number of females in NSW subject to police proceedings increased by 15 per cent between 1999 and 2009, while the number of males remained steady, according to research by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
Efforts at preventing reoffending by women have largely focussed on improving support and rehabilitation services for female detainees.
Dr Bourke said there were only about 12 female detainees in the Alexander Maconochie Centre, three of whom were on remand.
But he said the ACT could still learn from other jurisdictions, including Western Australia, where a comprehensive research profile of women prisoners was completed in 2009.
That study found female prisoners were commonly subject to domestic violence, the majority were unemployed prior to their prison term, two-thirds had children, and about half had not completed year 10.
An overwhelming majority, 90 per cent, of women experienced physical or sexual abuse at some point before their incarceration.
Dr Bourke said such research could be used to improve services for women in the AMC.
''We don't have a lot of female detainees in the ACT,'' Dr Bourke said. ''We've actually got a lot of services that we provide for women at the AMC, [but] of course women have to want to engage,'' he said.
He said strengthening ''throughcare'', or the continuation and co-ordination of support services while in prison and after release, was the key in preventing reoffending.
The ACT government has introduced a new position to better co-ordinate the variety of support services available to prisoners.
''Those issues that we're hearing from WA, that many of these women are the centre of a family, often have drug and alcohol issues, that history of violence, as well as mental health issues, are all challenges for us to support their change,'' Dr Bourke said.
''That's what corrections is about, it's about managing change in people, rebuilding lives,'' he said.
Dr Bourke said the ACT's periodic detention program, criticised as too lenient in the past, provided a second option for women in caring roles. ''One of the things that really came home to me … was the option we've got through our period detention program,'' he said.
''Obviously for someone who is the primary carer in a family … that's a good secondary alternative for magistrates.''
