This Act amends the Correctional Services Act 1982 to introduce a number of reforms aimed at improving prisoner management, protecting victims of crime and promoting rehabilitation, including:
• introducing an independent visitors’ scheme for inspecting prisons, in compliance with the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984) and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT);
• tightening provisions relating to the release of victims’ details and providing for the crediting of certain proportions of compensation paid to prisoners to the Victims of Crime Fund;
• ensuring monitored and recorded communications can be used in court or for other investigative purposes, including body-worn cameras for prison officers;
• introduce ‘prison buffer zones’ where controlled drugs are prohibited; and
• changing the parole process to expand the types of offences that are subject to review, introduce a new review mechanism for re-release and increasing the membership of the Parole Board. |