66251 (2024). Hon Willow-Jean Prime to the Minister of Corrections

66251 (2024). Hon Willow-Jean Prime to the Minister of Corrections: Further to 58179 (2024), does Corrections record information around whether people who have pre-sentence reports prepared for the Courts are primary caregivers of a dependent child or vulnerable adult in a manner that is readily searchable, and if not, why not?

Hon Mark Mitchell: Yes. I am advised that in February 2024, Corrections began to record whether someone is the caregiver of a dependent child or vulnerable adult, during the course of enquiries for a Provision of Advice to Courts report (also known as a PAC report or pre-sentence report). I am further advised that from March 2024, a new field was introduced in the Integrated Offender Management System (IOMS) where these reports are stored, which enables staff to record these details as “yes”, “no”, or “unknown”. The unknown category is provided as this information would not always be required for the purposes of determining a suitable sentence. Additionally, engaging in the pre-sentence interview is encouraged but cannot be enforced, meaning that this information may not always be reported. Furthermore, sometimes a Judge will impose a sentence without a PAC report being completed, so not everyone under Corrections’ management will necessarily have this information recorded. I am further advised that following a system improvement in September 2024, it became compulsory for Corrections’ staff completing these reports to enter a value in this field. Data prior to this improvement is therefore incomplete. While this information is now consistently captured in a searchable way as at the time of the PAC report’s completion, it cannot be updated in Corrections’ system and therefore may become inaccurate over time in some cases as people’s circumstances change. This is also my response to WPQ 66253 (2024).