As an independent investigation team prepares for a week-long visit to Canberra's jail, model prisoners will be appointed as delegates to raise issues with management about their conditions, programs and services.
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Delegates will be appointed to represent each of the prison's accommodation blocks and will meet once a month with the jail's management to discuss issues such as living areas, employment, education, visits and recreation.
Separate meetings will be held for male and female prisoners.
The policy is aimed at "promoting a positive dialogue between detainees and senior custodial management", according to the document signed off by the executive director of ACT Corrective Services Jon Peach.
What remains unclear is whether remandees, which comprise more than 35 per cent of Canberra's prison population, will be eligible for appointment.
Delegate appointments are only for 12 months, cannot be consecutive, and the position may be revoked if the chosen prisoner breaches discipline, poses a threat to security or "good order", or uses the position to "further their own self-interest".
Prison management will "establish arrangements for the nomination and selection of detainee delegates, including the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders".
The delegate roles were created as the Inspector of Correctional Services, Neil McAllister, is poised to take a team of people, including health experts, a forensic psychologist, and two members of West Australia's prisons inspectorate, into Canberra's jail for a formal "healthy prisons" assessment for the ACT Assembly.
