Justice Minister announces revised start-up date for Acacia

31/7/00

The Ministry of Justice has set a target date of March 1, 2001, for the start of operations at Acacia Prison, now under construction near Wooroloo in the Darling Ranges.
Announcing the decision today, Attorney General and Minister for Justice Peter Foss said that in setting the start-up target, the Government had taken a range of complex issues into account. The main considerations were:

• ensuring adequate time for the Ministry of Justice to integrate Acacia into the prison system;
• allowing Corrections Corporation of Australia, the contracted manager, sufficient time to recruit and train staff, set up viable prison industries and fine-tune Acacia's interface with Ministry requirements. Time for thorough security checks on job applicants was an important factor; and -
• ensuring there was no undue pressure on the construction schedule - a vital need because of the prison's security requirements and the difficulties of making adjustments to the infrastructure of a prison once it was in operation.

"Prisons are not facilities where you make things up as you go," Mr Foss said.
"They need to function effectively from the first day, so we have set a start-up target that the Ministry believes, after detailed evaluation, will provide time to get all the details right.
"It is important to understand that Acacia will not be a private prison. It will be owned by the Government and will operate under rules and standards set, monitored and enforced by the Government.
"In moving to a mixed system, the Government has taken a significantly different approach from other jurisdictions.
"Acacia will be fully integrated into the system as a whole. Achieving this while ensuring all the benefits of having an experienced private-sector manager requires meticulous preparation, and this takes time."
The Minister said prisoners would be assigned to Acacia in stages. It would be months - possibly as much as a year - before the prison reached capacity.
"This is critically important in commissioning a major new prison successfully," he said.
"It creates a low-pressure environment in which both prisoners and staff can adapt to each other and the prison itself. One of the clearest lessons from worldwide experience is that filling a prison too quickly is asking for long-term trouble."
Mr Foss said that Acacia's commissioning in March would be a turning point in offender management in Western Australia.
Three key factors would set Acacia apart from other prisons in the State system:

• as the biggest prison in WA, Acacia's 750 beds would ease the pressure of numbers throughout the system;
• as the State's most modern prison, its advanced design would greatly improve the security, care and rehabilitation of offenders; and -
• as the first privately managed prison in WA, it would herald an era of accountability, openness, innovation and contestability that over time would lead to reduced levels of repeat offending.

"In our early planning for Acacia we studied prison systems throughout the developed world and there was no question that the best results in rehabilitation came from mixed public/private systems," Mr Foss said.
"The unprecedented steps we have taken to increase accountability and openness will create a favourable climate for change.
"In this environment, the private sector's innovation and flexibility will accelerate the rate of improvement of the public prisons, and the element of contestability will provide a constant stimulus throughout the system."
Mr Foss said CCA had already appointed its management staff and would soon start recruiting and training about 300 operational personnel.
Each staff member would require a permit from the Director General of the Justice Ministry and training standards would be rigorously enforced.
"CCA is no newcomer to prison management - it has been successfully operating prisons in Australia since 1989 and companies with which it is associated operate more than 70 prisons in the United States, Britain and other countries," the Minister said.
"While CCA has complete autonomy in designing prisons, training staff and developing programs for prisoners, this international connection is an immensely valuable resource that is now available to the whole WA prison system."
Media contact Danielle van Kampen 9321 2222