Prisoner employment, such as the opportunity to learn the forestry trade,
will increase under the Corrections’ Prisoner Employment Strategy.
Corrections’ Prisoner Employment Strategy, launched last year, aims to increase the number of prisoners in employment and training to 60 per cent by 2010.
At present, about 45 per cent of prisoners are employed - that’s around 3,755 prisoners.
Corrections run 140 ‘business-like’ activities in prisons throughout the country, ranging from engineering and farming, to printing, joinery and forestry. In addition, more than 140 low-security prisoners undertake Release-to-Work jobs in the community each day, and supervised work parties from prisons undertake contracts in the community such as silviculture and forestry work.
Corrections Inmate Employment Manager Brent Maughan says that to meet the 60 per cent target Corrections will have to find or create work for an additional 1900 prisoners.
“Since July 2006, we’ve already created almost 600 employment positions, so we’ve made a good start,” he says.
The Prisoner Employment Strategy aims to make employment training available to as many prisoners as possible. However, Brent says it is unrealistic to expect every prisoner to be employed.
“Corrections has to run safe and secure prisons. This means some prisoners are precluded from working due to their high security classifications. For other prisoners, it’s more important that they attend rehabilitation programmes, educational activities or other requirements of their sentence,” he says.
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ISSN 1178-8453