Inspector of Custodial Services Amendment Bill 2024
(Second Reading Debate, 20 November 2024, Legislative Assembly, NSW Parliament)
The Inspector of Custodial Services Amendment Bill 2024 aims to improve transparency and accountability in correctional facilities in response to reviews calling for improvements, including a special commission of inquiry into sexual assault by a corrections officer in a women's prison. Incarceration, even in a well-managed facility, can be a difficult experience. Inmates are isolated and disconnected from their friends and family, and subjected to confinement, strict rules, boredom, poor food options and little to no autonomy.
When facilities are poorly managed and support bullying and intimidation, prison life can be devastating. There is a practice of dehumanising prisoners and treating them as if, no matter what, they are getting what they deserve. Indeed, we do not let those serving a full-time sentence of three years or more to vote in Federal elections or those serving a sentence of 12 months or more to vote in State elections. All humans have the right to be treated with humanity, dignity and respect, and it is the State's responsibility to honour those rights to inmates through a stable, secure and safe detention environment. I welcome the bill's focus on facilitating and addressing inmate complaints and increasing the oversight of facilities.
The New South Wales prison population continues to balloon, and we now have the highest number of incarcerated adults and the second-highest number of incarcerated children and young people in the country. The adult prison population is about 12,300, and the children and young people population is, on average, 200 kids on any night. Most people are incarcerated for minor offences linked to economic inequality and systemic discrimination. The incarceration of women, which is rapidly rising, has links to sexual, domestic and family violence and childhood abuse. Those drivers of contact with the justice system are not addressed by the jail experience but rather entrenched by it, often resulting in recidivism. Children are especially damaged by detention and led into a life of disadvantage and offending.
The cost of incarceration per person is over $100,000 a year. Meanwhile, successful programs that have been shown to break the cycle of incarceration and recidivism remain unfunded. There is no evidence that our high prison population has improved community safety, and it is time that we reset and reinvest in diversionary programs and community supports. There are excellent evidence-based, community-led programs with proven success that we could start funding now to reap significant future savings. I support the call of the Justice Reform Initiative for the New South Wales Government to establish a $300 million breaking the cycle fund over four years. The fund would be an investment that would improve community safety, help us achieve Closing the Gap targets and see massive improvements to the lives of people who are disadvantaged.
As members know, I am a strong supporter of raising the age of criminal responsibility in New South Wales to 14, and I will be working with my crossbench colleagues to address that in the new year. I hope that members reflect on the tough on crime rhetoric that is often adopted by politicians in Parliament and its long‑term impacts on vulnerable people, families and communities. There are few community benefits to this approach. It is time that we support a new, compassionate response to offending that focuses on prevention. I thank the Minister and his staff for working on the legislation and bringing it to the Parliament. I thank the many people who work in correctional facilities and who are really focused on inmate welfare. I thank the people in correctional facilities who will have a pathway to addressing their concerns through this legislation. I commend the bill to the House.