A system in shambles: Explosive report reveals jail crisis

A DAMNING report into the bungled release of prisoners has exposed staggering deficiencies in the state’s correctional system and levelled criticism at the Government’s response to the problem.

A report has painted a damning picture of prisoner processing in the state’s corrections system.

A DAMNING report into the bungled release of Tasmanian prisoners has exposed staggering deficiencies in the state’s correctional system and levelled criticism at the Government’s response to the problem.

The KPMG report paints a criminal justice sector underpinned by outdated, error-prone and complex systems that pose a risk to the community.

“There is no single source of accurate, reliable and verifiable data for information used in the criminal justice sector,” the report says.

“This … can result in inappropriate release on bail of offenders due to lack of knowledge of matters held in the other courts.”

Corrections Minister Vanessa Goodwin.

The report was instigated after a series of inmates were incorrectly released from Risdon Prison, which was first reported by the Mercury in July.

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In total seven prisoners, including armed robbers and family violence perpetrators, were wrongly set free over a 12-month period.

At the time Corrections Minister Vanessa Goodwin apologised to a family violence victim who wasn’t told that her estranged partner had accidently been released early.

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According to KPMG, the bungles occurred because of the complexity of prisoner processing where each step has a “prone error risk”.

“This is compounded by the multiple information systems … that do not integrate, the complex and inconsistent structure of (detention) warrants and manual calculation of sentences,” it said.

Key findings of the review included:

OUTDATED and insufficient IT systems that are not integrated across the prison service, courts or Tasmania Police.

ONLY a small number of prison staff have sufficient expertise with sentencing issues.

INADEQUATE staff training.

INACCURATE sentencing data is regularly entered into the IT systems.

STAFF manually override sentence calculations for more than 40 per cent of entries in the IT system because it is insufficient.

MANUAL overrides significantly risk a prisoner being held in jail for too long or released before their due date.

SENTENCE reductions meant for good behaviour are being awarded to prisoners en masse unless significant misbehaviour occurs.

The problems stretch back as early as 2009 when the Justice Department “identified an urgent need” to upgrade core systems used by the courts.

“At this time significant risks were identified for the department,” the report said.

In 2013 the department secured funding for a new criminal justice IT system but it was suspended because of budget cuts.

In August 2016 the Government set up a specialised Sentence Administration Unit to fix the problem of inmates being wrongly released.

But KPMG found no formal policies, procedures or standing orders “currently exist to guide and inform the unit”.

“There are not appropriate safeguards to prevent inappropriate and unauthorised adjustments to prisoner release dates,” the report says.

The Government has agreed to implement all of the report’s recommendations except one it deemed unnecessary.

“The KPMG audit which we are releasing today confirms the incorrect releases were the result of longstanding systemic issues within the justice system – issues that were ignored by the previous Labor-Green Government,” Dr Goodwin said.

“Tasmanians can rest assured that we are taking this matter very seriously, and all necessary steps are being undertaken to prevent these issues from occurring again.”

Opposition leader Bryan Green said the report showed Dr Goodwin was “not in charge of her portfolio”.

“We know there was a crisis, seven people released inexplicably,” he said.

“In the end ministers have to take some responsibility.”