For Eddie Aldridge, getting to leave the Alexander Maconochie Centre and head off to work has given him new skills and confidence for when he is eventually released.
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Aldridge is part of a program that connects detainees with organisations who provide support to people in need.
The program sees low security prisoners supervised while collecting kerb-side green waste, maintaining bike trails and working with rangers in the ACT's national parks.
"It's taught me new things and opened up new opportunities for different kinds of work," Aldridge said, after collecting Werner Binder's green waste in Kaleen on Tuesday.
Mr Binder said he came into the green waste collection program, which partners ACT detainees with Life Without Barriers to provide the free service, with an open mind.
"They're friendly, no problems at all. They just do their job and pop into the bus again and off they go," Mr Binder said.
Aldridge said it felt good to get outside the Alexander Maconochie Centre and help people who needed it.
"There's not much to do back there apart from sit around and do nothing, so it's good to get out and be active," he said.
Aldridge, who has been part of the program for six months, said the skills he had learned would help him find work when he is released.
Corrections minister Shane Rattenbury said the feedback he had received from people involved in the programs had been positive.
He said community members had appreciated the work and were conscious detainees deserved a second chance in life.
"They may have made some mistakes, or made some poor choices along the way, but they're still members of our Canberra community," Mr Rattenbury said.
However, Mr Rattenbury said there needed to be opportunities for detainees at every state of their imprisonment in line with their security classification.
He pointed to the Alexander Maconochie Centre bakery, which opened in September 2017, a recycling program, which sees detainees work on computer and information technology recycling, and efforts in food and agriculture.
"Part of what we want to have is an incentive based system at the AMC, so these people demonstrate they can have greater freedom. There are opportunities for them to progress with the activities that are outside of the wire," Mr Rattenbury said.
Mr Rattenbury said last month that it would cost more than $300 million to build more and operate more accommodation within the perimeter of the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
"If we did that we would simply build larger warehouses that would be filled up and we would continue the justice cycle as we now see it," Mr Rattenbury said at the time.
However, overcrowding at the centre risks dangerous human rights breaches, according to a review by the territory's Inspector of Correctional Services Neil McAllister that also found the centre often exceeded 100 per cent of its capacity.
The report also found remandees and convicted prisoners had been held together, which contravened international human rights law and the government's own legislation for the jail.
