Female AMC detainees made several Christmas-themed crafts for the festive season. Photo: Claire Fenwicke.
Boredom is one of the main contributing factors to poor outcomes, both in prisons and society more generally, leading decision-makers at Canberra’s Alexander Maconochie Centre to ramp up the activities over the festive season.
And there are hopes the one-off opportunities can be implemented more regularly throughout the year.
Christmas crafting opportunities were set up for female detainees – such as card-making, clay ornament creation and wreath-making – along with themed-movies and a ping pong tournament to lift spirits.
Women’s Community Centre director Olivia* said the holiday period was a particularly stressful time of year for the women.
“A lot of the women have not had good experiences at Christmas before, so this is a really big thing for them,” she said.
“This prepares women for reintegration back into the community, having these positive experiences they can share with their children.”
The ACT’s independent custodial inspector Rebecca Minty’s latest review of the AMC found the lack of meaningful activities for detainees was a barrier to their rehabilitation.
“Without sufficient purposeful activity, opportunities for skill development, education and positive engagement are limited,” Ms Minty said.
“Purposeful activity in jail is not a luxury. It is fundamental to preparing individuals for successful reintegration into the community, which in turn improves community safety.”
It’s an issue acknowledged by the prison’s decision-makers, with efforts to make more opportunities available to detainees.
One place this already occurs is in the AMC’s kitchen.
Detainee Services senior director Cameron* said its commercial kitchen and bakery were designed to both provide in-house food to detainees, and give them skills for their futures.
“Meaningful activity is well-documented as vital for the effective running of prisons. Having a meaningful activity gives an individual a sense of purpose, and obviously a skillset too that they can take into industry, if they choose to go down that path, or just to take home with them,” he said.
“If we can break that down with providing meaningful activity, a skillset, [that’s positive]. Plus they get to enjoy the fruits of their labour, so to speak, with the baked goods.”
AMC detainees changed up the menu in the bakery for Christmas. Photo: Claire Fenwicke.
The kitchen and bakery program is set up across six days a week, with three rotating shifts to allow different cohorts access to the spaces.
Providing formal qualifications has been a barrier at the AMC, partially due to the types of detention people have received.
Those on remand or serving shorter sentences generally aren’t in long enough to complete an educational course.
However the non-formal opportunity is there.
Custodial operations Assistance Commissioner Jim Taylor-Dayus said work was continuing on creating an environment at the AMC that kept detainees busy and active.
“It’s very important that we bridge the gap between detainees being in custody and not accessing family and loved ones, so we try and do what we can in that space to try and ease that frustration and that pressure that’s on them,” he said.
“There’s [always] a lot of activity on the ovals [with] games of footy and they continue throughout the year. What we tend to do is try and focus, during the holiday period … create some more competitions and sports for people.”
AMC detainees work in shifts to bake bread and other goods for the prison. Photo: Claire Fenwicke.
The chance for more regular activities outside the festive season was being considered, along with expanding the offerings beyond sports and games.
The ACT is the only jurisdiction in Australia without a commercial prison industry.
* Last names withheld to protect AMC staff’s identities.
