My name is David. I wanted to write to you with a bit of my story.
I’m currently incarcerated at WA – this is my second incarceration and a major concern of mine is that this time around my parole is going to be affected by unmet treatment needs. I’ve spoke to other sentenced prisoners and it’s similar for them too. My issue is that there aren’t enough writers or assessors to do my third assessment which tells you if they have identified any mandatory programmes. So what’s happening is when it comes time for prisoners to apply for parole, it seems to trigger their third assessment, identifying they have to do a mandatory program that won’t start until or around their earliest parole date.
It seems to be a major issue in the WA system – they are like two years behind and inmates aren’t getting the opportunity to meet that earliest parole date.
I’ve spoken to a independent visitor that came on the 22nd of December and was told that they do realise this to be a major issue and they were looking into it. Apparently it was brought up nine months ago but the independent visitor wasn’t sure what actions, if any, had been taken.
I hope this gets sorted as I’m currently eligible for parole in 2027 and fear I won’t get the help or programmes in time. I’ve currently engaged a rehab called Whitehaven at a cost of $3600 to help with my drug addiction in the meantime. The program comes to the prison weekly as I don’t want to get to the end of my incarceration and then it be identified that I’ve spent my time doing nothing to better myself as the current system and the fall behind is failing us.
Thank you,
David
