As a newly released national report outlined major issues within Australia's prison systems, it was revealed this week that the ACT's 20-bed transitional release centre at Symonston is empty and one of the government's bold ideas to curb recidivism, the $71 million Justice Reintegration Centre, remains on hold.
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Also revealed during the Budget estimates hearing this week was the apparent underfunding of the justice housing program, which now has many people waiting to go into the program as they are in it.
ACT Corrections confirmed 43 people were "under assessment" to go into the justice housing program, with 44 ex-prisoners currently housed in 10 properties across the ACT.
Justice Housing is cited by the government as a core element to its "Building Communities Not Prisons" initiative, aimed at "addressing the recognised lack of available and affordable housing for people released from custody".
The ACT's issues were revealed at the same time as the Productivity Commission released its report examining the complex issues around why crime rates are falling, yet imprisonment is at an historic high.
Productivity Commissioner Stephen King said that the current "tough on crime" policies are a contributing factor, but they don't necessarily create a safer society.
He also noted that the huge - and rising - expense of incarcerating offenders.
The latest data released by the Justice and Community Safety directorate revealed that it costs $359 a day to keep a prisoner behind bars in the ACT, or over $1 million per week based on an occupancy of 440 prisoners.
"Despite this expense, the system isn't working as well as it could be," Commissioner King said.
The ACT government has set itself a tough target of reducing recidivism in Canberra's justice system by 25 per cent over the next three years. It currently sits at 37.1 per cent, calculated on the number of prisoners who return to the justice system within two years.
The system isn't working as well as it could be
- Productivity Commissioner Stephen King
Accommodation pressures have dogged the high security Alexander Maconochie Centre consistently over the past five years and the problem was exacerbated by two separate riots which caused damage to two separate cell blocks.
One of the damaged cell blocks was repaired at a cost of $5.3 million. It has only recently been approved for prisoners to use. Another is still to be repaired and is expected to cost around $3.7million.
The empty transitional release centre sits outside the maximum security fence at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. It was designed for male prisoners only.
Two prisoners are waiting to go into the transition centre, but undisclosed security issues have prevented them from doing so.
The separate 80-bed, low security Justice Reintegration Centre was a concept developed when ACT Greens leader - now Attorney General - Shane Rattenbury previously held the corrections portfolio two years ago.
Corrections Minister Mick Gentleman could not provide any confirmation around the future timing for the reintegration centre, only that it had been deferred while "we look at what we can do in the future".
