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Speaker 1: Now it's a busy morning in here.

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Speaker 2: It always is eight nine one four nine if you'd

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Speaker 2: like to call through. Now. We've spoken at length over

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Speaker 2: the last couple of days about the government's plans to

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Speaker 2: expand the number of beds that we've got in Northern

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Speaker 2: Territory prisons. Now it is a bold plan which will

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Speaker 2: initially see an additional one thousand beds and it's then

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Speaker 2: going to see that number increase to three thousand long term.

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Speaker 2: The man tasked with managing the Northern Territory's correctional facilities

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Speaker 2: is Commissioner Matthew Varley, and he joins me in the

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Speaker 2: studio right now.

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Speaker 1: Good morning to your commissioner. Good morning Katie, thanks so

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Speaker 1: much for your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: Now, Commissioner, how many prisoners are currently in our correctional facilities?

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Speaker 3: A lot, Katie, is the short answer. Today. We have

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Speaker 3: two three hundred and twenty eight people in custody in

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Speaker 3: the NT and that's spread right across our network. The

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Speaker 3: challenge of courses, as your listeners know, we're full in

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Speaker 3: all of our major correctional centers. We're overflowing into watchhouses,

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Speaker 3: which is creating that additional pressure. So as of this morning,

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Speaker 3: there's about one hundred fifty seven people sitting in three

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Speaker 3: watchhouses that we're looking after around the Northern Territory. So

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Speaker 3: that's been a significant operational challenge for our people on

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Speaker 3: the ground, and it's really.

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Speaker 2: Tough in terms of your capacity and how many beds

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Speaker 2: you've sort of got to cater for. And I know

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Speaker 2: that you can move things around much like a hospital.

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Speaker 2: I guess when we're overflowing, we make room, but what's

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Speaker 2: the capacity meant to be?

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Speaker 3: Well, the capacity at the moment that we're operating to

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Speaker 3: in our main facilities is twenty one seventy seven. Now

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Speaker 3: that's an expanded capacity, Katie. Remember that over the last

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Speaker 3: two years or so, we've added in about two hundred

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Speaker 3: and thirty beds into the existing system, what we call

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Speaker 3: infil less than ideal, because we've had to do that

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Speaker 3: in response to those sort of I guess twenty percent

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Speaker 3: rising numbers over the last two years. And just to

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Speaker 3: give you some perspective, Katie and your listeners, since I

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Speaker 3: became Commissioner in I think two and a half years ago, now,

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Speaker 3: those numbers mean we've actually grown by about four hundred

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Speaker 3: prisoners in the Northern territory since when I started, so

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Speaker 3: two years, yeah, roughly, and it's accelerated in the last

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Speaker 3: sort of twelve months or so. Now I suppose, you know,

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Speaker 3: you don't need to be Einstein to work out that

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Speaker 3: we've got a crime situation out there in the community

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Speaker 3: and I work pretty closely with the police and their leadership.

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Speaker 3: They're doing their job, we're trying to do ours. The

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Speaker 3: situation of the numbers coming to us has been the

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Speaker 3: single biggest operational pressure we've been facing. Obviously on the

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Speaker 3: front line, we've added in those extra beds over the

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Speaker 3: last eighteen months or so, that has all been filled up,

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Speaker 3: and now we're in watchhouses. Of course, those watchhouses were

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Speaker 3: meant to be temporary. We don't want to be in them.

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Speaker 3: They're not ideal, they're not prisons, and we infringe on

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Speaker 3: police operational activity as well. We know that we work

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Speaker 3: pretty closely with them, but we'd rather be in our

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Speaker 3: own facilities running prisons, and that's what this plans all about.

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Speaker 2: Has it been a difficult juggle over the last couple

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Speaker 2: of years as those numbers have grown enormously, I mean,

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Speaker 2: four hundred extra over the last two years. That's a

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Speaker 2: big number and then having to house them in watch

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Speaker 2: houses and facilities that in some cases really aren't equipped

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Speaker 2: for long term use for a prisoner.

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Speaker 3: Has it been difficult, Well, our folks turn up to

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Speaker 3: work every day twenty four seven and it's been tough

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Speaker 3: on them. But I'm really proud of how they've responded

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Speaker 3: to that challenge. Corrections has done what it does best,

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Speaker 3: and that is solved problems. Our folk turn up, they

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Speaker 3: do their best, they manage, they're busy. It stretches us,

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Speaker 3: but it places extreme pressure on our not only our staff,

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Speaker 3: but our systems of operating that population. And you know,

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Speaker 3: good prison management should work on space inside your facility

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Speaker 3: so that when incidents happen, we manage behaviors. You can

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Speaker 3: move people around, you can separate them, you can add

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Speaker 3: you know, circuit breakers in the system, and when you're

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Speaker 3: over capacity, that's removed as a tool. So it does

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Speaker 3: create operational pressure for our staff.

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Speaker 2: Look, we'd spoken to a whistleblower last week who told

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Speaker 2: us about a terrible assault which had occurred a few

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Speaker 2: weeks ago where somebody was knocked out, and that whistleblowers

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Speaker 2: said that some of the behavior management things that you

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Speaker 2: would usually do within the correction system weren't happening. I mean,

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Speaker 2: is that the reason why or what is the reason? No?

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Speaker 3: Look, I mean we firstly on that assault. It's a

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Speaker 3: very serious assault. We responded immediately in support of those officers,

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Speaker 3: and the response time of their fellow colleagues that incident

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Speaker 3: was really good. I spoke with some of our officers

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Speaker 3: who responded, and you know, we did our best in

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Speaker 3: that dangerous circumstance and that incident was quickly dealt with.

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Speaker 3: That doesn't make it okay, though, And I don't want

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Speaker 3: my officers going to work every day at risk, and

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Speaker 3: I certainly don't want them being punching bags. And by

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Speaker 3: the way, we welcome the fact that, you know, new

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Speaker 3: laws passed by the government will mean assaults on workers

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Speaker 3: carry more significant penalties. Now that's a good thing for us.

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Speaker 3: But I guess at the end of the day, Katie,

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Speaker 3: our officers on the front line every day put themselves

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Speaker 3: at risk for the territory and do a bloody good

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Speaker 3: job at it. Now, in that particular instance, there was

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Speaker 3: a very serious assault, our officers dealt with it. The

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Speaker 3: offenders involved in that have been managed after the incident

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Speaker 3: with careful sanctions, and of course we refer that assault

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Speaker 3: to the police Major Crime Squad, and I'm told that

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Speaker 3: investigation is continuing. They've got the CCTV, we've made statements,

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Speaker 3: and eventually those offenders will be charged. But our officers

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Speaker 3: responded really well. Now, there was some concerns raised, I

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Speaker 3: understand around imps, which is what we call an intensive

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Speaker 3: management plan, and those are internal security assessments that we

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Speaker 3: do on prisoners who are high risk and we can

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Speaker 3: put restrictions around their behaviors. I understand that there's a

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Speaker 3: review going on in the prison at the moment by

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Speaker 3: our senior folk to look at whether the offenders involved

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Speaker 3: in those assaults should have or would have been on

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Speaker 3: intensive management plans. But there's also been some confusion, Katie,

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Speaker 3: about whether or not those offenders were involved in another

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Speaker 3: previous incident. And I think we're talking about a couple

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Speaker 3: of different groups of prisoners. But I guess what i'd

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Speaker 3: say to you and to our staff is that Assistant

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Speaker 3: Commissioner Michael Hebb, and I've been meeting with him regularly

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Speaker 3: on this is conducting an independent review of that incident,

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Speaker 3: and we'll make sure whatever we can learn from it

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Speaker 3: will do better next time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because look for me, fundamentally, and I'm assuming exactly

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Speaker 2: the same for you, is making sure that those correction

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Speaker 2: staff are safe. Like you've said, you know, they're going

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Speaker 2: to work every day and they're not there to be

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Speaker 2: somebody's punching bag.

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Speaker 1: They're not there to get assaulted.

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Speaker 2: And I know that dangerous situations would unfold, but you know,

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Speaker 2: you just don't want them to be in a situation

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Speaker 2: where you know they may be fearful of attending work

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Speaker 2: in any way.

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Speaker 3: Well, and I don't want them to be fearful, and

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Speaker 3: they should have our backing on that. We do what

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Speaker 3: we can in terms of their operational safety training, if

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Speaker 3: you like. We do regular refreshers on that they carry

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Speaker 3: body worn cameras, they carry capsic and spray. We have

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Speaker 3: something called the Immediate Action Team, which is another group

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Speaker 3: of specialized emergency response officers on duty to respond to

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Speaker 3: high riskins cidence. There are things we can put in place,

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Speaker 3: but I don't want to diminish the fact that our

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Speaker 3: offices in the blocks every day are placing themselves in

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Speaker 3: risky situations that most people wouldn't contemplate. My job and

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Speaker 3: our team's job is to make sure we're supporting them

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Speaker 3: as best we can and every single day. If we

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Speaker 3: can improve on that.

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Speaker 2: We will now And are you confident that your middle

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Speaker 2: management is passing up some of that information all the

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Speaker 2: way up to you as those correctional staff want to happen.

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Speaker 3: Well, what I've asked for is for that to be

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Speaker 3: investigated and reviewed. Now, I'm not saying that anyone's done

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Speaker 3: anything wrong here. I'm not even saying that your whistleblower

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Speaker 3: who wrote the letter has made an incorrect claim.

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Speaker 1: What I've asked for is.

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Speaker 3: The facts, and I've asked for a report back on

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Speaker 3: what actually occurred in the chronology of that incident. And

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Speaker 3: as I said, if there are practices procedures that need

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Speaker 3: to be fixed, we'll do that. What I don't have

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Speaker 3: is any suggestion or evidence that people are just not

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Speaker 3: handling situations properly. But again, let's get the facts and

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Speaker 3: let's work through it.

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Speaker 2: In terms of the number of prisoners that we've currently

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Speaker 2: got two three hundred and twenty eight prisoners across the

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Speaker 2: correctional facilities.

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Speaker 3: Do you know how many of those are on Remand

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Speaker 3: I do, but the answer is about forty seven to

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Speaker 3: forty eight percent, Kate, Katie, sorry, it's today one thousand

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Speaker 3: and forty three.

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Speaker 1: So that's big numbers, such big nighbors, right, and.

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Speaker 3: That you know, I think the thing to remember there

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Speaker 3: is that's where the primary growth has been. Over the

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Speaker 3: last two years. We've seen the growth in the remand

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Speaker 3: population you know, continue to accelerate. That puts significant pressure

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Speaker 3: on us. It puts significant pressure on courts. We escort

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Speaker 3: people to court every day, you know. Just as a fact, Katie,

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Speaker 3: a bit of trivia for your listeners out at Darwin,

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Speaker 3: we probably do around eighty to ninety video links to

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Speaker 3: court from the prison every day. Smaller numbers in Alice Springs,

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Speaker 3: but still we have dedicated av booths in the prisons

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Speaker 3: where prisoners can appear at court without actually being transported.

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Speaker 3: And then every day we're also transporting physically into court.

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Speaker 3: So it's a big machine.

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Speaker 2: So in terms of the changes you know and what's

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Speaker 2: been announced, how big an impact is it going to

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Speaker 2: make for you, hopefully in terms of the operations of

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Speaker 2: our correctional facilities.

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Speaker 3: Well, my primary objective is to do a few things.

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Speaker 3: One is to reduce pressure on the police watchhouses and

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Speaker 3: return those to police as soon as possible, so that

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Speaker 3: we can get into our facilities and run them like

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Speaker 3: we do as a correctional institution. The second thing is

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Speaker 3: to provide I guess pressure relief on our existing prisons

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Speaker 3: by building out new capacity, and that is through a

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Speaker 3: staged kind of plan over the next two or three

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Speaker 3: years as you've seen, and also to deliver on some

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Speaker 3: of the commitments that government's made around new facilities. This

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Speaker 3: first emergency stage of I guess emergency response to watchhouses

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Speaker 3: is happening now. You know. We've got a plan there

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Speaker 3: to move the young people from don Dale into the

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Speaker 3: new center. That should happen in the first week of November.

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Speaker 3: And I have work crews and trades persons and my

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Speaker 3: team on site at Dondale now already cleaning up that site,

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Speaker 3: making it fit for our use.

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Speaker 1: And is it going to be up to the standard

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Speaker 1: that you want it to be.

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Speaker 3: Look, it's not perfect and it's not ideal. What I'd

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Speaker 3: say is though it's secure, it's safe, it's operable, and

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Speaker 3: we've had our staff there, we've had our experts looking

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Speaker 3: through it like it's an old prison, Katie right, it

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Speaker 3: was closed down as a men's facility in twenty forty

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Speaker 3: when we built holts, but we've outgrown holes and so

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Speaker 3: this is an emergency response. Now we think and I say,

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Speaker 3: we can make it safe. We can make it secure.

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Speaker 3: It's got a fence, it's got locked doors, it's got

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Speaker 3: cell blocks. It doesn't have to be pretty, but it

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Speaker 3: can work.

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Speaker 1: Yep.

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Speaker 2: Now in terms of then programs being delivered and making

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Speaker 2: sure that prisoners are being rehabilitated or undertaking programs where

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Speaker 2: hopefully they can be are you confident that that's going

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Speaker 2: to be able to happen.

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Speaker 3: Well, we're going to keep growing that And recently I've

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Speaker 3: appointed a new Assistant Commissioner who's going to be in

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Speaker 3: charge of our industries and employment programs, and that's something

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Speaker 3: we're keen to grow and build. We already do some

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Speaker 3: work in that space, but we're going to do heaps more.

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Speaker 3: And Assistant Commissioner Kim McKay has joined us from South

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Speaker 3: Australia Corrections. He's a very experienced senior officer run prisons

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Speaker 3: in both WA and Essay and I've tasked him to

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Speaker 3: firstly commission that site out at Berrima and secondly work

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Speaker 3: on building up our industries and our employment programs. So

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Speaker 3: you know, sentence to a job is something that we've

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Speaker 3: been tasked to rejuvenate. And then of course we're also

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Speaker 3: at any time recruiting more psychologists small clinicians to keep

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Speaker 3: working on those rehabilitation how's.

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Speaker 2: The sentence toood or been going in recent time? Has

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Speaker 2: it been operating at the standard you want it to be.

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Speaker 3: Sentence to a Job is a scheme where we partner

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Speaker 3: with community based employers and we have some what we

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Speaker 3: call open rated prisoners, Katie. These are our most trusted

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Speaker 3: sentence prisoners who have done some progression through the system

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Speaker 3: to earn a degree of trust. Those open rated prisoners

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Speaker 3: go out and work in the community at employers, so

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Speaker 3: that happens. But we also have the community service work crews.

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Speaker 3: As you know, we have people working in the industry's

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Speaker 3: play in inside the prison. And you know, as I

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Speaker 3: said the other day, people don't people don't know what

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Speaker 3: goes on behind the walls. Though we have an industrial

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Speaker 3: kitchen at Halts that turns out three thousand meals a day,

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Speaker 3: run entirely by prisoners and a few staff. So sends

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Speaker 3: to a job is working. But what we're focused on

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Speaker 3: doing is growing it more.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, have you got many people involved in it at

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Speaker 2: this stage?

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Speaker 3: We do have a we have a I think, off

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Speaker 3: top of my memory about a dozen employers involved in

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Speaker 3: the community. But as I said, on any given day,

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Speaker 3: there's probably about eight hundred prisoners who have a job

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Speaker 3: in our prison system. But what we're going to be

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Speaker 3: doing is building up industries, and we're going to also

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Speaker 3: be working about how do we partner with employers so

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Speaker 3: that those jobs continue when they get back out into

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Speaker 3: the community.

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Speaker 2: Now, as part of all the changes that have occurred

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Speaker 2: as well, or that are sort of occurring, I understand

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Speaker 2: that you're now well you've always been in charge of

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Speaker 2: looking after the adults, but the youths now fall back.

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Speaker 1: Under your responsibility. Is that correct?

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Speaker 3: Well, the new Department of Correcttions that the government has

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Speaker 3: announced and established now brings together adult.

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Speaker 1: And youth justice.

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Speaker 3: So yes, I have responsibility for the folks who run

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Speaker 3: our youth detention centers, residential youth justice facilities, and bail facilities,

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Speaker 3: and also the community youth programs that we do for

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Speaker 3: young offenders.

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Speaker 2: Have we got many young people in detention at the moment.

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Speaker 3: Well, we have twenty five today between Darwin and Alice Katie.

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Speaker 3: I think it's probably decreased a bit over the last

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Speaker 3: few years, and that's because we have a few more

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Speaker 3: options in the system to be able to refer young

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Speaker 3: people too. But those numbers, you know, although small, fluctuate

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Speaker 3: a little bit. And again sixty to seventy percent of

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Speaker 3: those young people are on remand for various offenses. The

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Speaker 3: turnover of that romand population can be pretty quick. Sometimes

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Speaker 3: you know, some of them will stay less than seven days,

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Speaker 3: depending on their court case. But we have today in

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Speaker 3: don Dale about eleven in an Alice Springs fourteen.

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Speaker 2: I know there'd been a bit of discussion of earlier

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Speaker 2: in the week, and I'd actually spoken to the Chief

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Speaker 2: Minister about it as well, about the fact that some

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Speaker 2: of those youths from Alice Springs are going to be

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Speaker 2: transferred up to Darwin and that they wouldn't be able

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Speaker 2: to have visitation then from their family members. My understanding

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Speaker 2: from what the Chief Minister had said is that in

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Speaker 2: some cases those youth aren't getting.

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Speaker 1: A lot of visitors.

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Speaker 2: I mean, like, what's your take on that situation and

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Speaker 2: do you think that it's going to have a big

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Speaker 2: impact or is it something that you know realistically it

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Speaker 2: needs to happen.

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Speaker 3: Well, we looked at well, well, I can tell you

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Speaker 3: when the Chief Minister met with me and the Minister

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Speaker 3: for Correction soon after she was elected, she tasked me

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Speaker 3: to do an entire review of the corrections I guess network,

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Speaker 3: including youth Justice to solve some of those problems that

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Speaker 3: we spoke about. When I did that and looked at that,

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Speaker 3: it made sense to me and to my team that

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Speaker 3: we run the new Holtz Youth Justice Center as the

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Speaker 3: single primary youth detention center for the NT not dis

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Speaker 3: similar to other jurisdictions. In some res it has forty

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Speaker 3: four to forty six beds single bedrooms. We can upscale

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Speaker 3: that with the addition of extra beds in those rooms,

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Speaker 3: so it has plenty of capacity. It's purpose built from

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Speaker 3: the ground up. By transferring the Youth Justice kids from

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Speaker 3: Alice to Darwin into that main facility, we unlock the

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Speaker 3: ability to use that Alice brings youth detention center for women,

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Speaker 3: and I solve that problem by unlocking more beds for

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Speaker 3: men in the main prison. So presently we have women

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Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty odd women in the Northern Territory

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Speaker 3: between Darwin and Alice sitting inside the perimeter of men's prisons,

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Speaker 3: which brings a whole lot of risk and a whole

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Speaker 3: lot of infringement on the services we can provide to them.

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Speaker 3: So my job is to look at that entire network.

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Speaker 3: Now to your question about kids moving to the North, yep, Yes,

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Speaker 3: that's a problem. It's a practical solution to a problem

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Speaker 3: of a much bigger scale, and we recognize that we've

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Speaker 3: got to do work to make sure kids receive the

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Speaker 3: services that they need in youth attention. Believe we can

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Speaker 3: do that at Holts in a best practice facility. And

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Speaker 3: the honest reality, Katie is you know we don't see

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Speaker 3: the numbers of visits from family in youth attention that

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Speaker 3: people might think we do. The majority of visits we

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Speaker 3: facilitate into those youth centers are actually professional visits from

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Speaker 3: lawyers and services.

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Speaker 2: Matthew Varley, Before I let you go this morning, the

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Speaker 2: big question obviously is around staffing levels. I know that

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Speaker 2: the Union had told us yesterday on the show that

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Speaker 2: they believe that we're going to need an additional eighty

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Speaker 2: to one hundred officers in Alice Springs based on the

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Speaker 2: increase in beds sixty to seventy officers in the top end.

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Speaker 2: How many do you anticipate your need.

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Speaker 3: I still want to work through those numbers with the union, Katie.

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Speaker 3: I'm actually meeting with the two unions this morning, and

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Speaker 3: now that those announcements have been made, we're starting the

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Speaker 3: consultation process on the models for those new facilities. So

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Speaker 3: I don't want to put a number on it, because

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Speaker 3: I guess that's part of the work we'll do. But

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Speaker 3: we still are recruiting lots of correctional offices for the NT.

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Speaker 3: I make the point we do have more correctional offices

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Speaker 3: in the NT than ever before. We've got six hundred

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Speaker 3: almost seven hundred, actually six hundred and ninety nine at

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Speaker 3: last pay, and that number has steadily grown over the

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Speaker 3: last two years. In Alice Springs, for example, we have

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Speaker 3: one hundred and ninety one offices on the books today.

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Speaker 3: We can do with more. I think, actually, you know easily,

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Speaker 3: I would recruit another thirty forty officers into Alice Springs tomorrow.

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Speaker 3: And we've been recruiting hard over the last two years.

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Speaker 3: And we've got another I think fifteen officers graduating here

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Speaker 3: in Darwin on Friday, and another seventeen in training that

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Speaker 3: should graduate before Christmas.

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Speaker 2: Well Northern Territory Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley really appreciate your

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Speaker 2: time this morning.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on the show.

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Speaker 3: Good to talk Katie.

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Speaker 1: Thank you