Australia: most difficult prisoners mentoring most vulnerable in trial programme

Matthew Taylor is the first to admit he wasn’t a model prisoner during his time behind bars at Canberra’s Alexander Maconochie Centre. “I was getting into a lot of trouble in here, fighting with officers, fighting with other detainees, using ice a lot and I got to the point where I was going to kill myself,” he said.

“I did deserve to be in prison. I’ve robbed people, I’ve hurt people.” Taylor has been in the prison for just under three-and-a-half years for burglary, firearms and drugs charges. He was also among the first inmates to be chosen as a mentor in a unique peer support program being trialled at the facility.

It was designed to tackle one of the biggest challenges for state and territory governments: rehabilitating prisoners to stop reoffending. The program pairs the most difficult prisoners with vulnerable inmates from the Special Care Centre, which houses new intakes and those with intellectual disabilities, drug addiction and mental health problems.

‘It was a risk’¶

The 30-person special care unit is not an area you would expect to see the most violent and hardened criminals allowed free rein. But while it might seem counterintuitive, forensic psychologist Ahu Kocak said the trust placed in detainees makes it work. “It was a risk, it was something new and hadn’t been done before,” Ms Kocak said.

“The detainees weren’t necessarily model prisoners previously, so it took a fair amount of evidence-based examples of how this could work.” The prisoners selected as mentors undergo a five-week training course and have weekly debriefings. Their roles include helping new detainees adjust to the daily routine of prison life. “One of the first issues that may arise is the overwhelming anxiety of being in prison-the inability to contact their loved ones or know how to navigate their way around the system, even just understanding how things work,” Ms Kocak said.

‘They wanted to change’¶

The mentors are seen as members of prison staff. Perhaps not surprisingly, the idea was questioned by some prison guards including Terry Martens. “I was a little bit hesitant as to how it was going to go,” Mr Martens said. “I’ve actually had a fair bit of contact with the [first] two guys put forward as peer support, had a fair bit of history. They were guys I wouldn’t have put forward as mentors.”

Mr Martens was surprised by the way it unfolded. “Working with them over the last bit of time you could genuinely see they were trying and wanted to change,” he said. Taylor, who is now on parole, said working as a mentor had helped change his outlook on life.

“It made me realise I’ve got a lot to offer people that’ve been through the same stuff I have,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of jail and I don’t want to see the younger blokes doing what I did. “I think because it’s detainee helping detainee — other people don’t like getting help from staff — when it comes from a bloke who has been through the same stuff, it’s different.”

The Alexander Maconochie Centre has been plagued by scandal, with two deaths due to drugs in the last 12 months currently under investigation. Prison manager Don Taylor told 7.30 the prison was improving. “We are always about trying to do better for our detainees, that’s our primary task,” he said. “Number one is making sure our detainees are equipped better for when they leave the centre.”

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