It beggars belief that the ACT government keeps virtually no robust data on how many prisoners within the Alexander Maconochie Centre live with disabilities. Instead, prisoners are asked to self-identify any support needs, and ACT Health notified.
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It is well-known that people with disability are overrepresented in prisons internationally and in Australia. UNSW criminologist Eileen Baldry and countless other academics, reports and reviews have noted that jails have become an unfortunate default where social suppports have failed.
What data the ACT does hold paints a dire picture. A detainee health survey undertaken in 2016 found 28 per cent of respondents screened positive for an intellectual disability - a rate almost 10 times that of the general population, and much greater than the national average among prison populations.
It should be noted the government has argued the figure is not directly comparable, as the measurement for intellectual disability used in the prison survey differed from other measurements.
Regardless, ACT Auditor-General Maxine Cooper in 2015 recommended that the territory government maintain data on prisoners with intellectual disability to ensure offenders with disability were properly supported and rehabilitated. This has not been done.
A government spokesman told Sunday Canberra Times data would be collated online from next year - but it seems data would be collected under the current method, where prisoners nominate their own disability.
The government's own health survey found while 28 per cent of detainees had an intellectual disability, only 14 per cent of detainees had previously been diagnosed by a doctor or health professional. This seems to suggest such a method is inaccurate.
According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, many people with disability experience homelessness, unemployment and social isolation prior to their incarceration. Victorian data suggests ex-prisoners with intellectual disability return to prison at more than twice the rate of ex-prisoners without.
Without rectification, this could be viewed as another failing in the scandal-plagued Alexander Maconochie Centre, originally touted as "the most human-rights-compliant, rehabilitation-focussed prison in the world".
The government promised a strategy on disability justice two years ago, but to date little has materialised.
Accurate data should and must be maintained on experiences of prisoners with disability - for everyone's sake.
