Convicted murderers serving life sentences in Canberra's new prison could be released into the community for up to a week without ACT Corrective Services or police supervision.
According to the Alexander Maconochie Centre's transitional release policy, obtained by The Canberra Times, all sentenced prisoners classified as minimum security, including those serving life sentences, can apply for transitional release. The purpose of the scheme is to ''facilitate the prisoner's reintegration into the community and/or workforce in anticipation of their imminent release,'' the policy says.
However, the leave criteria also extends the scheme to prisoners serving life sentences, a penalty only available to convicted murderers in the ACT. In the ACT a life sentence is for the remainder of the offender's life. The leave can be for up to seven days at a time and can be for interstate or local travel, provided the prisoner is accompanied by a sponsor who can be a friend or relative.
While on leave prisoners are prohibited from consuming drugs and alcohol, gambling, and associating with ''any other prisoner, ex-prisoner or person of ill-repute''.
The prison's superintendent will decide whether to grant leave and whether the prisoner requires a Corrective Services escort ''following a consideration of the purpose of the leave, the risk to the community and any other factors deemed relevant''.
ACT Corrective Services deputy executive director Barry Folpp told The Canberra Times yesterday the leave scheme was extended to prisoners serving a life sentence to facilitate their rehabilitation, even if they would never be released.
''It's about giving them more life and social skills,'' Mr Folpp said.
''In regards to technology that has gone on, [such as] the introduction of ATMs and those sorts of things that may not necessarily have been there when they were incarcerated.''
According to the policy a sponsor must be at least 25, without a criminal record or pending charges, and have a longstanding relationship with the prisoner.
Mr Folpp said someone serving a life sentence would not necessarily be required to be escorted by a Corrective Services officer while on leave, but this would be subject to a risk assessment.
A spokesman for ACT Corrections Minister Simon Corbell said in a statement yesterday the granting of leave would depend on ''factors including, but not limited to: risk of escape, any risk to the prisoner, victims issues, the nature of offence, the prisoner's behaviour whilst in custody and any potential benefits to the prisoner's rehabilitation all of which are assessed during the application process.
''The purpose of the leave may be to [but is not limited to] attend a health/rehabilitation service, to take part in work related activities or for compassionate reasons.''
At present there are two prisoners serving life sentences for murder at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, although it is understood neither classified as minimum security.
David Eastman was convicted in 1995 of murdering Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester and sentenced to life.
Queanbeyan man Allen Thompson is serving six consecutive life sentences for the murder of six members of a Canberra family two girls in a deliberate car crash in 1981 and four others in their Richardson home in 1984.
The most recent murder convictions in the ACT those of former policeman John Conway and his lover Kathy McFie were in 1998, in relation to the 1997 murder of his estranged wife Ricky Conway.
Conway and McFie hired two hitmen who gave Ms Conway a fatal heroin overdose. They were sentenced to 24 and 20 years respectively. The hitmen, Barry Steer and Danny Williams, were also convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years. Steer committed suicide in a NSW prison in 2000, while Conway, McFie and Williams are understood to now be in the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
Email a friend