Queensland Corrective Services (QCS) have five high and low security facilities housing collectively over 881 female prisoners across Queensland. The facilities include Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre, Helana Jones Centre, Numinbah Correctional Centre, Southern Queensland Correctional Centre and Townsville Women’s Correctional Centre. QCS is also responsible for the supervision of approximately 4,485 women across 34 Community Corrections offices and 133 reporting centres.
QCS contracts non-government organisations to deliver reintegration services. The objective of women’s reintegration services is to promote improved wellbeing, prepare women for successful reintegration back into the community and through reducing barriers to reintegration, ultimately assist women to achieve long term desistance from crime. Service providers work closely with QCS staff and other government and non-government providers to support transitioning women.
QCS currently have the following Contracts in place for the provision of Women’s Re-entry Services:
Program Name
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Facility
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Provider
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MARA
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Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre
Helana Jones Community Correctional Centre
Numinbah Correctional Centre
Southern Queensland Correctional Centre
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SERO4 Limited
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CREST
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Townsville Women’s Correctional Centre
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Open Minds Australia Limited
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Both services have different structures and designs, the CREST service being essentially a general service for men and women with some features of gender-specific support, and the MARA service being a codesigned women-specific service. Between 2019 and 2022 a further service implemented and managed by the Department of Justice and Attorney General (DJAG) was in place at Southern Queensland Correctional Centre (SQCC).
Both the CREST and MARA services are contracted to 30 June 2023.
A Griffith University evaluation of the MARA service was completed in June 2020 to inform future service design. The evaluation found the service to be highly effective in providing gender responsive support for women and reducing reoffending.
Evaluations were also undertaken on the CREST and DJAG-managed service provision at SQCC.
The evaluations noted the issues associated with the current fragmented service delivery framework and recommended consideration of one single statewide service that will increase service model effectiveness and address equity in service access across women’s facilities. These reports provide contemporary summaries of best practice in working with women to support their community reintegration, and an assessment of the strengths, gaps and opportunities in the current service suite.
The Queensland Government approved the allocation of recurrent funding to enable QCS to provide a single model of women’s reintegration services in Queensland in 2022-23.
The recently released Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce (WJST) Report No 2 also identified a number of areas for focus regarding reintegration support and similarly recommended the implementation of a single statewide service for women. This report included extensive consultation with women with lived experience of the criminal justice system and stakeholders.
In addition to the above, QCS is also implementing End-to-End Case management which includes the introduction of dedicated case managers within correctional centres, who will undertake assessment and planning activities, and provide supportive handover to Community Corrections staff who will supervise and case manage women after release. Implementation of case management in all women’s facilities will be in place by December 2022.
This procurement activity seeks a professional contractor to assist QCS to design the new statewide service as recommended by the evaluations and the WJST.
The contractor will build on the recommendations from all three evaluations and the WJST Report to work with key stakeholders to develop a new service that:
- Reaches as many women as possible who move from custody to the community in an environment of increasing demand for effective reintegration services;
- Continues to provide gender-specific supports for women as they move from custodial environments to the community;
- Ensures continuity of support for women as they move between QCS locations;
- Addresses inequitable service levels and geographical reach across the state including in regional locations;
- Effectively integrates with new QCS case management functions in correctional centres and existing case management functions in Community Corrections;
- Reduces duplication while also partnering effectively and leveraging services available from other Government and non-government organisations.
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