Kirsty Needham
The O’Farrell government’s cuts to staff monitoring the supervision of high-risk parolees have caused 200 jobs to go, with Labor warning the removal of one in five officers was far more than expected and is risking community safety.
Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin told a budget estimates hearing there was a ”net reduction” of 200 positions when the Community Compliance and Monitoring Group was merged with Probation and Parole.
Labor’s justice spokesman Paul Lynch said this represented a 20 per cent cut to the number of officers supervising parolees and it exceeded expectations.
”That’s too much,” said Mr Lynch.
”Two hundred less people supervising parolees means that there are too few people doing this important work. Very obviously this has implications for community safety. But proper supervision while on parole is an important part of rehabilitation and these cuts threaten that.”
A Corrective Services spokeswoman rejected Labor’s claim that axing the specialist monitoring group had put community safety at risk.
She said a comprehensive review in June after murderer Terrence Leary’s alleged attack on a woman at Hunters Hill ”found face-to-face contact with around 80 serious sex offenders across NSW had been doubled and vital checks to catch offenders giving false information were significantly boosted”.
”The repeated claims that supervision of parolees has been reduced have been proved to be untrue,” the spokeswoman said.
NSW Parole Authority chairman Ian Pike has previously said the compliance and monitoring group assisted with supervision of the ”more high-risk parolees”, and had urged more resources be committed to overall post-release supervision.
Attorney-General Greg Smith said the NSW government would consider Mr Pike’s call for extra resources as it examines the Justice James Wood review of parole in the wake of the alleged violent assault by Leary while on parole.
The Corrective Services spokeswoman defended the department’s cutbacks, saying half the 200 jobs lost were ”back-office administrative roles that had no supervisory function”, and another 30 positions were already vacant.
The government says the merger removed duplication and inefficiencies. Under the new system, low-risk offenders receive less attention.
But Mr Lynch said supervision of these offenders was important to their rehabilitation.
The Community Compliance and Monitoring Group conducted unannounced home visits and urine testing for drugs, managing 10 per cent of high-risk offenders and operating out of 11 offices statewide.
The Corrective Services spokeswoman said these offices were often in the same towns as the community offender services branch, which had 60 offices.
After-hours visits have also been cut. But the spokeswoman said analysis of the Community Compliance and Monitoring Group’s rosters had shown 85 per cent of previous home visits had taken place before 8pm, and 95 per cent before 9pm.