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Eighth, the prison system can be improved by constructing more transition centres. Victoria only has one transition centre - the 25-bed Judy Lazarus Transition Centre in West Melbourne. Designed to assist with the reintegration of prisoners in the last six months of their sentence back into the community, the Judy Lazarus Transition Centre effectively acts a metropolitan minimum security prison (as opposed to the rural "open camp" prisons). One 25 bed transition centre simply cannot cater for a prison population in Victoria that is nearing 5,OOO and whose prisoners come predominantly from the Melbourne metropolitan Area.

Ninth, the prison system can be improved by moving away from cognitive based programs designed to address offending behaviour towards holistic "what works" approaches towards lessening the chance of recidivism while improving the chances of successfully leading a law-abiding life. It can be argued that programs designed to address offending behaviour are used as "bookends" in the criminal justice system in Victoria: as a reason to impose a custodial sentence at the front end of a prisoner's sentence ("You can do that program in prison"), and as an excuse to deny parole at the back end of his sentence ("Parole is denied because you haven't done that program.") An associated observation is that those that undergo programs designed to address offending behaviour and who don't return to prison are those that would not have re-offended anyway. A lack of a substantial decline in recidivism rates since the introduction of programs designed to address offending behaviour also lends support to this accusation. It needs to be remembered that the prison and system in Victoria operated for over 150 years without such programs. In 1987 the rate of prior known adult imprisonment for all prisoners in Victoria was 72.7% (Office of the Correctional Services Commissioner, "Statistical Profile: The Victorian Prison System 1995-96 to 2000-2001",4th Edition, Department of Justice of Victoria, Melbourne, March 2003, Table 9, page 19). In 2003 it was 52.9% (Office of the Correctional Services Commissioner, "Statistical Profile: The Victorian Prison System 2001-02 to 2OO5-2006", 7th Edition, Department of Justice of Victoria, Melbourne, January 2OO7, Table 8, page 17), and it has remained at around that figure ever since. The rate for female prisoners has actually increased over that period! The first Drug Treatment Unit commenced treatment programs in G Division at Pentridge Prison

"Ideas about How to Improve the Prison System: A 10 Point Plan" Page 5

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