Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the Department for Correctional Services
- Recommendations
- 24
- Report length
- 186 pages
Summary
The report's own summary: Executive Summary, pages 8 to 10
Generated summary: written by an AI model from the report text and checked against the cited pages.
South Australia’s Independent Commissioner Against Corruption evaluated the Department for Correctional Services to identify ways to reduce corruption and other integrity risks.
The evaluation concentrated on prisons and examined organisational culture, reporting, policies, recruitment, training and performance management.
The Commissioner considered the Department’s policies and procedures sound but identified improvements to their management, recruitment, training and performance expectations.
The Commissioner made 24 recommendations covering staff training, policy controls, prisoner interactions, prison security and performance management.
Report, page 10 · Report, page 12 · Report, page 13 · Report, page 14
In the body's own words
- Recommendation
Introduce regular and mandatory training about grooming and inappropriate relationships for all staff who have regular contact with prisoners.
- Recommendation
Reinforce the need for absolute compliance with access control screening procedures for all persons entering a prison, including staff.
Findings, opinions and statements
Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.
No findings are reproduced in this record. This does not establish that the report contains none.
Recommendations 24
Recommendation 1
Ensure all staff receive mandatory annual training in respect of bullying and harassment.
Recommendation 2
Clarify the roles and responsibilities in respect of the policy life-cycle between the Operational Support and Performance Section and the Strategic Policy, Projects and Partnerships Section.
Recommendation 3
Ensure Executive Instructions issued by the Chief Executive or other authorised person are the subject of Standard Operating Procedure 063 ‘Management of Policies and Procedures’ to ensure those instructions are absorbed into relevant policies.
Recommendation 4
Ensure Executive Instructions are included in the quarterly report prepared by the Strategic Policy, Projects and Partnerships Section for the Chief Executive’s review.
Recommendation 5
Conduct a review of policies, procedures and Executive Instructions currently available on the Department’s intranet to identify and delete outdated and obsolete documents.
Recommendation 6
Amend Standard Operating Procedure 063 to include a process to determine and approve the appropriate dissemination and education strategy to be applied in respect of any new or amended policy, procedure or Executive Instruction.
Recommendation 7
Reinforce to all managers and supervisors the need to insist on adherence to established policies and procedures.
Recommendation 8
Amend the ‘Conflict of Interest Policy’ to require all staff who have contact with prisoners to make a disclosure of any conflict of interest (or to declare no such conflicts exist) on an annual basis.
Recommendation 9
Introduce regular and mandatory training about grooming and inappropriate relationships for all staff who have regular contact with prisoners.
Recommendation 10
Consider the feasibility of establishing a separate communication channel for staff to raise concerns about their interactions with prisoners or their observations of others’ interactions and to receive support to manage those concerns.
Recommendation 11
Develop a staff rotation policy which defines and reflects the underlying rationale and principles to be applied in determining appropriate rotation arrangements.
Recommendation 12
Reinforce the need for absolute compliance with access control screening procedures for all persons entering a prison, including staff.
Recommendation 13
Consider the merits of transitioning to an electronic mail system for prisoner mail.
Recommendation 14
Assess the feasibility of changes to CCTV technology to allow for the retention of footage for at least three months.
Recommendation 15
Advance the trial planned for Yatala Labour Prison to assess the feasibility of the widespread use of body-worn cameras in all prisons.
Recommendation 16
Consider implementing a system where workplace ‘contact officers’ are embedded across all parts of the organisation.
Recommendation 17
Ensure that where matters are referred to sites for investigation, steps are taken to identify and manage any perceived or actual conflicts of interest that may compromise the impartiality or perceived impartiality of the investigation.
Recommendation 18
Develop a recruitment policy setting out expectations with respect to recruitment activities conducted within the Department.
Recommendation 19
Ensure managers and supervisors receive training in respect of conducting Performance Development Plans and having difficult conversations with staff about poor performance.
Recommendation 20
Circulate information to staff reminding them of their obligation to participate in Performance Development Plans.
Recommendation 21
Develop a performance management policy and procedure that outlines performance management responsibilities and processes.
Recommendation 22
Clarify the role of supervisors in relation to performance management and Performance Development Plans.
Recommendation 23
Provide managers with access to a central information system combining information about the work history and performance of his or her staff.
Recommendation 24
Develop a policy outlining the circumstances where staff may be ineligible for overtime.
Published responses
No published response was found.
Coverage
This publisher
- Office for Public Integrity: publishes only its annual reports (excluded); no OPI report or statement records.
- Since October 2021 the Commission does not make findings of corrupt conduct; most records have no findings.
- Government and agency responses are recorded only where the Commission's page links them or the report reproduces them; implementation status is not published by the Commission as structured data.
- Scanned reports without a text layer are not read (no OCR); their recommendations stay not_extracted.
- Recommendations are extracted only from numbered 'Recommendation N' lists; reports that set out recommendations in prose, tables or unnumbered lists keep recommendations_status not_extracted.
- Findings are extracted only from investigation reports that state them in the Commissioner's own words (Oakden 2018, Gillman 2015); public statements are not read for findings.