Ensuring safe communities is a core objective of the Queensland Government. The Government is committed to meeting Queenslanders’ expectations that they and their families should feel secure in their homes and in public. The public should have confidence that the State has a criminal justice system that is fair and just, and also robust in its protection of the public from crime.

The effective rehabilitation, reintegration and supervision of prisoners released into the community is an important component of the criminal justice system, and is crucial in reducing the risk of re-offending by those under supervision. The report by Mr Walter Sofronoff QC is a comprehensive and considered review of the parole system in Queensland. Its recommendations provide a clear path towards reform, underpinned by the Government’s core objective of ensuring safe communities.

The report provides an opportunity to reshape and improve the parole system in Queensland through long-lasting changes to the management and rehabilitation of prisoners and offenders generally. The Government appreciates the significance of the opportunity and accordingly support or supports in principle the majority of recommendations, with some requiring further consideration and consultation.

We recognise that improvements to the parole system can improve Queenslanders’ safety and offer real rehabilitation to people who have offended against their community. When a person is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, they should have the opportunity to take part in rehabilitation programs while they are in custody and during any period of parole that they may serve in the community. That way, they are given every chance to become a contributing member of their community.

Past experience has shown that imprisonment will always be required for people whose offences are of a nature that prison is the only appropriate form of punishment. However, evidence also shows that imprisonment for people under supervision on parole and in breach of their order is rarely effective. Short-term imprisonment tends to disrupt their access to programs designed to support reintegration and reduce re-offending, such as housing, employment and supportive relationships. Experts agree that it is counter-productive to churn parolees in and out of the prison system for minor violations.

The Palaszczuk Government is committed to ensuring the Probation and Parole Service provides a greater range of supervision options to enable offenders to address their behaviour while being appropriately monitored and managed in the community. As part of a more contemporary parole system that meets community expectations, the Government aims to establish a prioritisation process for prisoners to ensure they receive appropriate rehabilitation while in custody and, importantly, are appropriately supervised on release.

When we came to government, we inherited a prison system that was overcrowded with the growth in prisoner numbers compromising the ability to effectively rehabilitate prisoners. This is likely contributing to the increase in the rate of prisoners returning to prison within two years of their release. Without appropriate rehabilitation, a prisoner will have difficulties with changing their behaviour upon release from custody. Through the implementation of the recommendations made by Mr Sofronoff, the Government will be best placed to address the imbalance between punishment and rehabilitation in the criminal justice system.

In Queensland, the provision of corrective services costs approximately $800 million a year. As Queensland’s population continues to grow it is unlikely that this expenditure will decrease. However, it is important that the cost to Queenslanders does not continue to escalate. While the financial cost of delivering corrective services in Queensland is high, the cost of crime to the community, both financially and socially, is far greater.

Increasing rehabilitation services and strengthening probation and parole enhances community safety and reduces government expenditure on prisons and the cost of crime to the community. The sweeping reforms to the parole system planned by the Palaszczuk Government will likely achieve savings in the long term.

Our first priorities towards achieving a more contemporary and effective probation and parole system that meets community expectations in Queensland are to:

     expand the Capricornia Correctional Centre, which will ease prison overcrowding and generate more jobs in central Queensland, with the managing contractor appointed and early site works to commence by November 2017

     reinstate the Drug Court in Brisbane by the end of 2017

     introduce legislation in early 2017 to establish a new, independent, professional parole board

     appoint a parole board president-designate to guide establishment of the new parole board, secretariat and work processes for the board

     introduce "no body, no parole" legislation during 2017

     expand the use of GPS technology to monitor parolees across Queensland, commencing in high risk locations such as Townsville and the Gold Coast

     expand rehabilitation, drug and alcohol and mental health treatment services in prison

     expand opioid substitution treatment across Queensland prisons, starting in North Queensland.,

     expand re-entry services, targeting female prisoners.

     strengthened end to end case management and improved management of offenders in the community by providing up to 243 additional and better trained probation and parole officers over the next four years.

     expand prison mental health services provided to prisoners with more complex and severe mental health needs.

A more contemporary parole system and robust and resilient probation and parole services requires a long-term strategy to effect change, rather than a reliance on short-term solutions. The Palaszczuk Government will develop a long-term plan to implement the report’s recommendations with the exception of two recommendations.

Recommendation 7 seeks to give sentencing judges the discretion to depart from mandatory non-parole periods. In Queensland, mandatory non-parole periods apply to a range of serious violent offences such as murder and unlawful striking causing death. The Palaszczuk Government’s key priority is to build a robust probation and parole system while keeping community safety as our top priority. In our view the potential risk to community safety by implementing Recommendation 7 outweighs the benefits it could bring to the new parole system and as such, it is not intended to remove mandatory non-parole periods at this point in time.

Recommendation 58 of the report poses similar risks to community safety. The recommendation seeks a review of the policy restricting placement of sexual offenders and prisoners convicted of murder or serious violent offences with a view to reintroducing appropriate candidates to low security facilities. Even if it can be argued that some such prisoners constitute a relative low risk to community safety, the possibility of an escape by an offender in a low security program undermines the community’s confidence in our system. This recommendation cannot be supported at this point in time.

The Palaszczuk Government’s vision is to deliver a world-class probation and parole system, one that effectively manages, supervises and rehabilitates offenders both while in custody and when released on parole into the community. Led by a properly-resourced, professional and independent parole board, such a system will lessen the likelihood of re-offending by parolees, thereby enhancing community safety.

A robust and resilient probation and parole system is crucial to Queensland’s criminal justice system. Importantly, our planned reforms reaffirm our election commitment to keep Queenslanders safe and create stronger communities, socially and economically, into the future.

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