“Rehabilitation of the offender is the community’s best protection.”
The above quote, or variations on it, are made in the ACT’s criminal-law courts in scores, if not hundreds, of sentencing matters every week, echoing superior-court authority developed over the past half-century.
It combines two of the seven legislated factors of sentencing in the ACT’s Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005.
Whether the matter is drink-driving or drug-driving, assault, family violence, drug possession or trafficking, or a firearms or sexual-assault offence, rehabilitation is a particularly important consideration.
So, it was all the more shocking to read in The Canberra Times this week that the ACT’s supposedly human-rights-compliant prison was falling well short of the mark on rehabilitation.
The Times report detailed findings by ACT Auditor-General Ajay Sharma that noted on some days both education-officer posts or both programs-officer posts were vacant, meaning no educational services or rehabilitation programs could run for detainees on those days.
“This negatively impacts detainee rehabilitation and does not support the overall goal of the AMC as a human-rights prison,” Mr Sharma said.
To keep the jail safe and operational during periods of unplanned leave, Corrective Services had re-allocated custodial officers away from posts related to education, programs, and activities, to what were termed “priority” posts.
The auditor found that shoddy rostering had caused high rates of unplanned leave, vacant posts, and cancelled training sessions. Such rostering failed to meet the needs of the jail, staff, and detainees, he said.
The auditor might have gone on to add “the community” to that list – or, indeed, to even have had it at the very top of the list.