Correctional Services Statistics

Ms SYLVIA HALE: I address my question to the Minister for Justice. Is the Minister aware that the recent Auditor-General's report shows that New South Wales has a higher rate of imprisonment per 100,000 population than the national average, when offences such as robbery, unlawful entry with intent, motor vehicle theft and other theft have declined in real terms since 2002; that New South Wales has a higher rate of assault within prisons than the national average; and that New South Wales has a higher rate of recidivism than the national average? Why have the Government's policies produced such outcomes? What new initiatives will the Government adopt to address these problems?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: I think the member has answered her own question. She said the rate of imprisonment is higher and the rate of offending is lower. I think that explains, to some extent, the issues she has raised. The member raised a number of matters in her question. Firstly, in relation to assault, the member would know that unlike other jurisdictions, at the moment in New South Wales people who are placed into custody in police cells are included in statistics for the State's prison system. Most other jurisdictions do not include statistics relating to police cells in their corrective services statistics. Many people who come into custody for the first time are detoxing from drugs or alcohol and are quite distressed and are naturally impulsive, and in other jurisdictions that information is under the jurisdiction of the police, not corrective services.

The member would also know that unlike the situation that exists in other States—and this will change in this State in due course— in New South Wales forensic patients, that is health patients, are held in corrective services custody. The figures for such people, who are also extremely distressed and quite agitated, are captured by the Department of Corrective Services and are part of its statistics. Consequently, the figures become inflated. She would also know, if she bothered to research matters, that that situation will change when the new forensic hospital is completed at Long Bay, and when such people leave the prison system they will become the responsibility entirely of the health system. She failed to report that statistics are captured differently in other jurisdictions. In New South Wales corrective services records every offence of assault irrespective of how minor it is. Other jurisdictions do not use the same method of capturing statistics.

The major driver of recidivism, and the member should be aware of this, is policing. If we have stronger policing, inevitably more people will be caught and returned to prison. I do not think that that is necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, as I think report after report has stated, the New South Wales corrective services system also includes a Drug Court, which operates on the basis of sanctions, which means that if a person commits a breach—has dirty urine, for example—he or she can be brought back into the correctional system. Each one of those sanctions is recorded as a recidivist statistic. So, those factors cannot be compared to determine whether the system is inferior. That is not the appropriate way to measure recidivism. However, I have noted that generally re-offending is on the way down. We have a commitment under the State Plan to reduce recidivism across the board, and not just in the correctional system, by 10 per cent over the duration of the plan, and I note that, notwithstanding the criticism the member has expressed, that the rate is falling.