Custodial Inspector (Tas)
A short factsheet on Tasmania's Custodial Inspector: its establishing Act and its independent oversight of Tasmanian prisons and detention facilities.
Learning outcomes
- State the Tasmanian Custodial Inspector's establishing Act and its independent inspection function over Tasmanian prisons and detention facilities.
Act: Custodial Inspector Act 2016 (Tas).1
Established: The Act creates an office the Governor may fill, not an agency. Section 5(1) provides that the Governor may appoint a person as Custodial Inspector, with Schedule 1 governing the appointment. Note the verb, and compare the ACT: the Custodial Inspector Act 2017 (ACT) s 9(1) says the Executive must appoint a custodial inspector. Same institution, same practical function, and a duty in one jurisdiction against a discretion in the other. There is no body corporate; staff are appointed under the State Service Act 2000 (s 11(1)).
Purpose: To provide independent, proactive, preventative and systemic oversight of custodial centres (s 3) — Tasmanian prisons and youth detention facilities, examining conditions and the treatment of detainees. This is the same kind of systemic role as the ACT's equivalent office, not an individual complaints service.
Where the authority sits
The Inspector must act independently, impartially and in the public interest (s 7). The functions in s 6(1) are more prescriptive than the ACT's: a mandatory inspection of each custodial centre at least once every 3 years, occasional inspections at the Inspector's own initiative or at the responsible Minister's request, published guidelines and standards, and reports to the Minister or to Parliament. The three-yearly cycle is a statutory floor, so an absence of recent inspection is itself a question about compliance with the Act.
Powers conferred under the Act
The Inspector may visit and examine any custodial centre at any time they think fit, and obtain full access to documents including health records (s 8). Failing to comply with a requirement of the Inspector is an offence (s 9). Like its ACT counterpart, the Inspector has no power to compel a specific operational change — its influence is independent, public reporting.
Is it a prosecuting authority?
No. The Act creates an offence of failing to comply with the Inspector's requirement (s 9), but confers no prosecution function on the Inspector, and no power to direct a custodial centre. Prosecution is for the ordinary Tasmanian prosecuting authority. The Inspector's output is reports.
How it relates to the other Tasmanian bodies
An individual detainee's complaint about their own treatment is more likely to go to Tasmania's Ombudsman or Health Complaints Commissioner in the first instance; the Custodial Inspector's remit is facility-level systemic oversight.
Self-check
- Have I said what the Act actually does — permits an appointment — rather than assuming it establishes an agency?
- Have I noticed that Tasmania's "may" is the ACT's "must", and not carried one jurisdiction's rule into the other?
- Have I described the role as systemic facility oversight, not individual complaint resolution?