Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we heard earlier in the week, concerns have been
raised about pressure on police watchhouses, with the Northern Territory
Police Association saying the Palmerston Watchhouse is overflowing, mostly with
corrections prisoners who are no longer supposed to be housed there.
Nathan Finn joined us on the show last week, saying
that he fears it's only a matter of time before
there's a death in custody, with the pressures also impacting
(00:24):
police frontline capabilities. Now joining us in the studio to
talk more about the situation and more generally about how
things are being managed across corrections is the Deputy Commissioner
Kimberly McKay. Good morning to you.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Kim, good morning, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Thank you so much for your time. Now there are well,
I guess are there still corrections prisoners at the Palmerston Watchhouse.
I had thought that with that extra capacity coming online,
the watch houses were handed back to police, but it
seems that that that's not entirely the case.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
In anyways. Yes, Katie, So the environment has been handed
back to police and we've withdrawn our staff from acting
in that space. And the reality is, whilst people get
processed through court. They only become under our control when
they engage in our facilities and they're handed over to us.
So we do need to work through a process of
(01:20):
transitioning custody from the police to us. But at the moment, yes,
police are managing people who would be suited to our
environment and should be in our environment at this point
in time.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
And is it just a situation right now where it
is a capacity thing. I mean, you know, we obviously
I'm assuming Corrections, you know, are doing the best that
they can, but you can only do so much with
the space you've currently Gosh.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, that's correct. You know, Corrections is working around the
clock to expand our capacity. It's been high on our
agenda and is maintained high on our agenda from right
at the start of this challenging period that we entered into.
You know, for example, the Darwin Correctional Center has been
running at capacity through this whole whole time, with prisoners
(02:08):
housed in locations that we would say is not our
priority locations, so for example, prisoner reception, where prisoners are
there through the nighttime and then during the day decanned
into the main part of the prison to engage in
other activities and then put back into there. So yeah, right,
so the prison is full.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So literally in when you say prisoner reception, that's like
the reception area ordinarily where somebody where a visitor or
you know, somebody might come in.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
It's where we would hold prisoners as we do our
admission processes and where we transition people through our environment
out to courts on the daily basis. So it's a
it's a high movement area during the daytime and it's
very much an additional location for us to hold people.
So our assurance to our police colleagues is that we
(02:55):
are running our infrastructure at capacity. We're not holding back
beds and hence the work that we're doing out at
Bhrama Correctional Center.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
I mean, as you've touched on there, the use of
the Palmerston Watchhouse, it's not ideal, I guess in any way.
It's not ideal in terms of you know, the police
juggling that, in terms of those those corrections prisoners being
in there and it being very crowded. I mean, what
do you have any idea how much longer it's going
(03:24):
to be required.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
That it's used. Yeah, So I mean at the moment
there's sixty people in the Partminston Watchhouse and overall today
we've got about one hundred and eight people in watchhouses
across the territory. So our core objective is to move
those people into locations where we can provide the services
that we deliver as a correctional model Darwin Correction sorry,
(03:47):
the Bhrama Correctional Center. You know, we originally plan to
open that with two hundred people. Today we've got four
hundred and ten beds in that location, and as we
transition into August, which is our next phase of growth
in there, we'll be lifting that facility up to about
six hundred and fifty beds. So our attention is well
and truly in August to reduce the pressure on the
(04:07):
police watchhouses that they're managing, but also to move to
a position where we can start to relieve some pressure
on our own system as well.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Kim, in terms of the Palmerston Watchhouse, why is it
the case that police have to look after those corrections prisoners.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, Look, I think this is really about the system
in general. So people get process through court, they are
reminded to custody and the remand Order will say that
they're reminded to the custody of corrections, so they remain
in the police watchhouse until we can make available space
for them and transition them across to our facility.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Can you tell us at the moment, you know, across
our correctional facilities across the Northern Territory, do you have
any of those up to date numbers in terms of
just how many prisoners we've got at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, so today we're two eight and forty nine people
in custody.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Is that a record? It sounds like a very very
close to a heigh yep.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And I think the important part of that for your
listeners is that one three hundred and ninety of those
are on.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Remand yeah, they're big remand numbers, and I guess it.
You know, it demonstrates to our audience as well the
broader issue of trying to get people through the court
system more quickly, and that's obviously an issue for the
government in terms of One of the other things that
the Northern Territory Police Association had raised with us last
(05:34):
week was the fact that police officers are then transferring,
you know, some of those being held in the watchhouse
then to the court. How come, that's a job that's
being done by them rather than correctional staff or the
G four S contractors.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, I think that would be relatively normal process. So
the G four S contractors would be managing what they can,
the correction staff will be transferring people all the time,
which talking about large amounts of movements. So for example,
the Holtz facility, the Darwin Correctional Center, that would be
exceeding one hundred movements through its watch house today. So
(06:10):
we're talking about a large logistical model which generally takes
a lot of people to navigate. An if genuine interest
is to get people through the courts as fast as possible,
that relationship that we maintain with police and gfours and
our correctional staff is really important.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
How are things going at the moment in terms of
the G four S contractors and also with I understand
we've still got some South Australian officers, do we.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, we've got six South Australian officers and we're in
regular contact with South Australia. We're grateful for their support.
Their commitment is to support us with those six resources
through to the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
At this stage, kim I mean, when you look at
the ever growing number of prisoners that we've got, I mean,
you guys are obviously corrections trying to increase the prison capacity.
Just give us a bit of an idea where things
are at with the new beds the infrastructure coming online
as well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, So the next really big step for us is
obviously the Behramer Correctional Center in the month of August,
where like I said, we'll push that out to six
point fifty. We've got continue plans to grow the Behram
Correctional Center in its heyday for adult custodial that was
sitting up around that thousand mark, and so we know
that there's some capacity in there that we can move
(07:30):
to should we need to. Those works are well and
truly underway, and additional works we've got across the system
is out at the Darwin Correctional Center. In the next
few weeks we'll be starting on the transition of a
unit out there we call Sector eleven, which is an
external unit to build that capacity into a women's precinct.
(07:50):
So we'll have a women's dedicated women's precinct outside the
main wire, hopefully up and running around November. And we've
got a considerable amount of work underway Alice Springs around
the setup of the Alice Springs Youth Attention Center, as
we've committed previously to convert that over to a women's prison,
which will be up and running towards the end of
the year for about ninety women.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
How big a difference will that make from your perspective
in terms of managing those prisoner numbers.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
These are really huge step forwards for the territory. You know,
the capacity for us to run independent modeling for women
is critical not only from a safety perspective, but from
a rehabilitation perspective as well, and those services can only
delivered when they're outside of the stresses of a male
dominated environment. And this is the you know, this is
(08:40):
the opportunity, and we're taking the opportunity with both hands
to really reform that piece of our business.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Kim. I know one of the things that people will
be thinking as are hearing about all of these additional
beads coming online and the number of prisoners that we've got,
is how are we staffing at you know, like in
terms of the increased numbers. And I know that over
the years and certainly over the last few months, We've
had quite a bit of interaction with correctional officers saying
(09:07):
that they are understaffed and that there's been dangerous situations
at times as well. So how do you deal with
all of that?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, look, I think it is a complex scenario. You know.
Now we're a really large employer corrections for the territory.
We've got about seven hundred and fifty correctional offices employed
by us. The considerable amount of growth in our recruitment
is the admiration of the country, to be honest, and
when I talk to my colleagues across other jurisdictions. We've
got a team at the moment heading over to New
(09:35):
Zealand to do some recruitment in New Zealand, and we've
had some really good success in Alice Springs around around
creating opportunities for our key week colleagues to come over
and bring us experience. We've done a little bit of
work in the UK system, you know, and looking at that,
so our capacity to expand our reach and really bring
people into the territory is a huge piece of work
(09:58):
we're working on.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
By Commissioner Kimberly McKay really appreciate your time this morning.
Thank you very much for joining us on the show.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Thank you, thank you.
As we heard earlier in the week, concerns have been
raised about pressure on police watchhouses, with the Northern Territory
Police Association saying the Palmerston Watchhouse is overflowing, mostly with
corrections prisoners who are no longer supposed to be housed there.
Nathan Finn joined us on the show last week, saying
that he fears it's only a matter of time before
there's a death in custody, with the pressures also impacting
(00:24):
police frontline capabilities. Now joining us in the studio to
talk more about the situation and more generally about how
things are being managed across corrections is the Deputy Commissioner
Kimberly McKay. Good morning to you.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Kim, good morning, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Thank you so much for your time. Now there are well,
I guess are there still corrections prisoners at the Palmerston Watchhouse.
I had thought that with that extra capacity coming online,
the watch houses were handed back to police, but it
seems that that that's not entirely the case.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
In anyways. Yes, Katie, So the environment has been handed
back to police and we've withdrawn our staff from acting
in that space. And the reality is, whilst people get
processed through court. They only become under our control when
they engage in our facilities and they're handed over to us.
So we do need to work through a process of
(01:20):
transitioning custody from the police to us. But at the moment, yes,
police are managing people who would be suited to our
environment and should be in our environment at this point
in time.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
And is it just a situation right now where it
is a capacity thing. I mean, you know, we obviously
I'm assuming Corrections, you know, are doing the best that
they can, but you can only do so much with
the space you've currently Gosh.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, that's correct. You know, Corrections is working around the
clock to expand our capacity. It's been high on our
agenda and is maintained high on our agenda from right
at the start of this challenging period that we entered into.
You know, for example, the Darwin Correctional Center has been
running at capacity through this whole whole time, with prisoners
(02:08):
housed in locations that we would say is not our
priority locations, so for example, prisoner reception, where prisoners are
there through the nighttime and then during the day decanned
into the main part of the prison to engage in
other activities and then put back into there. So yeah, right,
so the prison is full.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So literally in when you say prisoner reception, that's like
the reception area ordinarily where somebody where a visitor or
you know, somebody might come in.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
It's where we would hold prisoners as we do our
admission processes and where we transition people through our environment
out to courts on the daily basis. So it's a
it's a high movement area during the daytime and it's
very much an additional location for us to hold people.
So our assurance to our police colleagues is that we
(02:55):
are running our infrastructure at capacity. We're not holding back
beds and hence the work that we're doing out at
Bhrama Correctional Center.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
I mean, as you've touched on there, the use of
the Palmerston Watchhouse, it's not ideal, I guess in any way.
It's not ideal in terms of you know, the police
juggling that, in terms of those those corrections prisoners being
in there and it being very crowded. I mean, what
do you have any idea how much longer it's going
(03:24):
to be required.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
That it's used. Yeah, So I mean at the moment
there's sixty people in the Partminston Watchhouse and overall today
we've got about one hundred and eight people in watchhouses
across the territory. So our core objective is to move
those people into locations where we can provide the services
that we deliver as a correctional model Darwin Correction sorry,
(03:47):
the Bhrama Correctional Center. You know, we originally plan to
open that with two hundred people. Today we've got four
hundred and ten beds in that location, and as we
transition into August, which is our next phase of growth
in there, we'll be lifting that facility up to about
six hundred and fifty beds. So our attention is well
and truly in August to reduce the pressure on the
(04:07):
police watchhouses that they're managing, but also to move to
a position where we can start to relieve some pressure
on our own system as well.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Kim, in terms of the Palmerston Watchhouse, why is it
the case that police have to look after those corrections prisoners.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, Look, I think this is really about the system
in general. So people get process through court, they are
reminded to custody and the remand Order will say that
they're reminded to the custody of corrections, so they remain
in the police watchhouse until we can make available space
for them and transition them across to our facility.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Can you tell us at the moment, you know, across
our correctional facilities across the Northern Territory, do you have
any of those up to date numbers in terms of
just how many prisoners we've got at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, so today we're two eight and forty nine people
in custody.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Is that a record? It sounds like a very very
close to a heigh yep.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And I think the important part of that for your
listeners is that one three hundred and ninety of those
are on.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Remand yeah, they're big remand numbers, and I guess it.
You know, it demonstrates to our audience as well the
broader issue of trying to get people through the court
system more quickly, and that's obviously an issue for the
government in terms of One of the other things that
the Northern Territory Police Association had raised with us last
(05:34):
week was the fact that police officers are then transferring,
you know, some of those being held in the watchhouse
then to the court. How come, that's a job that's
being done by them rather than correctional staff or the
G four S contractors.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, I think that would be relatively normal process. So
the G four S contractors would be managing what they can,
the correction staff will be transferring people all the time,
which talking about large amounts of movements. So for example,
the Holtz facility, the Darwin Correctional Center, that would be
exceeding one hundred movements through its watch house today. So
(06:10):
we're talking about a large logistical model which generally takes
a lot of people to navigate. An if genuine interest
is to get people through the courts as fast as possible,
that relationship that we maintain with police and gfours and
our correctional staff is really important.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
How are things going at the moment in terms of
the G four S contractors and also with I understand
we've still got some South Australian officers, do we.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, we've got six South Australian officers and we're in
regular contact with South Australia. We're grateful for their support.
Their commitment is to support us with those six resources
through to the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
At this stage, kim I mean, when you look at
the ever growing number of prisoners that we've got, I mean,
you guys are obviously corrections trying to increase the prison capacity.
Just give us a bit of an idea where things
are at with the new beds the infrastructure coming online
as well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, So the next really big step for us is
obviously the Behramer Correctional Center in the month of August,
where like I said, we'll push that out to six
point fifty. We've got continue plans to grow the Behram
Correctional Center in its heyday for adult custodial that was
sitting up around that thousand mark, and so we know
that there's some capacity in there that we can move
(07:30):
to should we need to. Those works are well and
truly underway, and additional works we've got across the system
is out at the Darwin Correctional Center. In the next
few weeks we'll be starting on the transition of a
unit out there we call Sector eleven, which is an
external unit to build that capacity into a women's precinct.
(07:50):
So we'll have a women's dedicated women's precinct outside the
main wire, hopefully up and running around November. And we've
got a considerable amount of work underway Alice Springs around
the setup of the Alice Springs Youth Attention Center, as
we've committed previously to convert that over to a women's prison,
which will be up and running towards the end of
the year for about ninety women.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
How big a difference will that make from your perspective
in terms of managing those prisoner numbers.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
These are really huge step forwards for the territory. You know,
the capacity for us to run independent modeling for women
is critical not only from a safety perspective, but from
a rehabilitation perspective as well, and those services can only
delivered when they're outside of the stresses of a male
dominated environment. And this is the you know, this is
(08:40):
the opportunity, and we're taking the opportunity with both hands
to really reform that piece of our business.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Kim. I know one of the things that people will
be thinking as are hearing about all of these additional
beads coming online and the number of prisoners that we've got,
is how are we staffing at you know, like in
terms of the increased numbers. And I know that over
the years and certainly over the last few months, We've
had quite a bit of interaction with correctional officers saying
(09:07):
that they are understaffed and that there's been dangerous situations
at times as well. So how do you deal with
all of that?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, look, I think it is a complex scenario. You know.
Now we're a really large employer corrections for the territory.
We've got about seven hundred and fifty correctional offices employed
by us. The considerable amount of growth in our recruitment
is the admiration of the country, to be honest, and
when I talk to my colleagues across other jurisdictions. We've
got a team at the moment heading over to New
(09:35):
Zealand to do some recruitment in New Zealand, and we've
had some really good success in Alice Springs around around
creating opportunities for our key week colleagues to come over
and bring us experience. We've done a little bit of
work in the UK system, you know, and looking at that,
so our capacity to expand our reach and really bring
people into the territory is a huge piece of work
(09:58):
we're working on.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
By Commissioner Kimberly McKay really appreciate your time this morning.
Thank you very much for joining us on the show.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Thank you, thank you.
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