Offenders Get Breaks Over Strained System
Criminals are using the lack of rehabilitation in South Australian jails to win less jail time.
In the past 12 months, evidence of the lack of rehabilitation has been considered by judges when:
- Releasing a multiple child sex offender from indefinite detention partly because a lack of resources had delayed rehabilitation.
- Overturning the indefinite detention of a rapist, partly because it was “unfair” he was denied rehabilitation reserved for those soon to be released.
- Fixing a non-parole period for a drug user, commenting he could access better rehabilitation in the community.
- Suspending the sentence of a man convicted of assault, commenting this would allow him to access community rehabilitation.
- Lowering a non-parole period for a sex offender, commenting prison could set back his recovery.
Chair of the Law Society’s Criminal Law Committee George Mancini said the trend was increasing because of a State Government policy of longer sentences. “It is an aspect of overcrowding, of longer terms of imprisonment and not spending sufficient resources on rehabilitation,” he said. A spokesman for Prisons Minister Tom Koutsantonis defended the Government’s record on rehabilitation. “Prior to 2005, there was no sex offender treatment in SA prisons at all,” the spokesman said.
A number of the recent decisions have been made on the advice of Dr Raeside, a consulting psychiatrist to the Department of Correctional Services, who has been praised by judges for his professionalism and is highly critical of rehabilitation in the state’s jails.
“I figure if we are going to lock more people up for longer (whether one agrees with that policy or not) then we ought to do something for them whilst they are there to reduce the chances of them re-offending and make the community safer when they get out,” he said.
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