A custodial oversight body has launched a new public transparency tool to track recommendations made to improve Canberra's jail and youth detention centre.
The online tool designed by the ACT Office of the Inspector for Custodial Services consolidates more than 200 recommendations it made in Healthy Prison Reviews and critical incident reviews since 2019.
Inspector Rebecca Minty said in documenting the ACT Corrective Services' responses to her office's recommendations, and their implementation status, the database provides a record of action and inaction.
"This was an opportunity to bring together lots of different pieces of data and put it in one place that will hopefully be user-friendly for members of the public, for community organisations, for other stakeholders, to better understand what recommendations have been made, what issues have been identified, what the government has done to respond, and also if they've committed to something and they haven't yet fulfilled it. It's our opportunity to flag that," Ms Minty said.
The tool tracks where the government and inspector's office disagree on whether a recommendation is open (not yet implemented), but cannot track the status of recommendations made by other agencies.
The database also includes recommendations from death-in-custody inquests, the Jumbunna report into overrepresentation of First Nations people in the territory's justice system, the ACT Ombudsman and the Auditor-General.
One of the 52 open recommendations highlighted by the tool at Canberra's Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) is the persistent need for "purposeful activity", a recommendation repeated by consecutive custodial inspectors, to keep detainees busy.
Ms Minty said the custodial inspector's office had repeatedly recommended a multi-purpose industries building at the AMC to offer practical courses, such as forklift driving.
"It really makes the staff's jobs easier if detained people are busy and tired at the end of the day, and they're not up till all hours in their cells playing Xbox," Ms Minty said.
It was initially recommended in the Healthy Prison Review 2019 and remade in the 2022 review, noting the need to explore the feasibility and cost of a "modest" building and provide opportunities for female detainees to engage in work.
The issue was raised again in 2025, urging the government to finalise and fund the AMC's strategic infrastructure plan to finally create this multi-purpose space.
While the ACT's 2026-2027 Budget does not include funding for such a building, ACT Corrective Services has "noted" the 2025 recommendation and agreed that the recommendation is yet to be implemented.
Ms Minty said recommendations where the government "agrees in principle" sometimes result in corrective services implementing a different solution that her office feels does not fully meet the recommendation's intent.
For instance, despite recent redesigns to the AMC admissions area, the inspector believes it still lacks necessary privacy for newly admitted detainees undergoing intake interviews.
However, the tool also tracks successful improvements, such as the implementation of privacy screens over cameras in the AMC's Crisis Support Unit cells, protecting the dignity of female detainees.
Despite these wins, Ms Minty noted fundamental issues, like "sub-optimal" record-keeping and crime scene management after critical incidents, continue to require oversight.
At the ACT's Bimberi Youth Justice Centre, more than half of the recommendations (39 of 67) made by the inspector's office and the National Preventative Mechanism remain open.
A notable positive development tracked by the inspector's office is the recent provision of restricted internet access to support youth education, a recommendation initially made in 2020 and remade in 2024.
"We are going to assess that because we understand young people do now have access to some [websites] under supervision," deputy inspector, Sean Costello, said.
Their office is also monitoring open recommendations such as recording the attendance of youth detainees at the Murrumbidgee School, and establishing of a formal use of force review committee to ensure staff learning and reflective practice.
The new recommendations tool is live on ics.act.gov.au.
