Monday, November 4, 2024

Darwin rehab treating former prisoners with addiction to be replaced by new prison

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A Darwin rehabilitation service helping former prisoners confront their drug and alcohol addictions has been forced to close prematurely to make way for a new women’s prison ahead of the Northern Territory election. 

It means 40 beds will no longer be available for parolees working to overcome substance abuse, amid concerns from police over alcohol-fuelled violence and antisocial behaviour across the territory.

Mission Australia Residential Rehabilitation Service’s (MARRTS) contract with NT Health was due to expire in June 2025, with plans to eventually return the facility back to the NT’s Department of Corrections.

The rehab service sits within the Stringybark Centre in Berrimah alongside a sobering up shelter and detox unit — the only coordinated addiction support service of its kind in the NT. 

Mission Australia’s NT regional leader Paul Royce said the organisation was initially led to believe it would have about 12 months to transition from the site, allowing enough time to help arrange a new model of care with NT Health in a different location. 

Instead, the NT government has ordered MARRTS to close its doors as soon as July 19, leaving the residential rehab service no choice but to shut down entirely.

Paul Royce says MARRTS wasn’t given enough time to transition properly from the site.(ABC News: Tristan Hooft)

“The disappointing thing for Mission Australia and others is that First Nations people are already over-represented in our prison systems,” Dr Royce said. 

“To lose 40 beds for an AOD [alcohol and other drugs] preventative service and have that money being re-afforded to prisons, it sort of doesn’t make sense.”

Since 2017, MARRTS has offered a 12-week residential rehab program for people recovering from addiction, taking most of its referrals from Corrections NT for former prisoners jailed over alcohol and drugs-related offences. 

“Locking up people again and again doesn’t work,” Dr Royce said.

Former prisoners share benefits of rehab program

Rhiannon Ponto, a Ngalakam-Alawa woman from the remote community of Minyerri, is nearing the end of the program. 

an aboriginal woman looking down with a furrowed brow

Rhiannon Ponto says she wants to give up alcohol and find a job. (ABC News: Hamish Harty)

The young mother recently served jail time over a fatal drink-driving incident.

“That’s why I don’t want to drink anymore,” she said. 

“It breaks your heart. When you go back to prison you worry about family and sorry business.”

Ms Ponto said she found rehab at MARRTS challenging at first, but felt she was now making progress. 

“Alcohol is the problem,” she said. 

“I can go back to prison, but I came here because they help me and support me here.”

a close-up image of an aboriginal woman wearing a ponytail

Ms Ponto hopes to find work in the childcare sector when she returns home.(ABC News: Hamish Harty)

Alcohol abuse ‘exacerbating’ domestic violence, says NT Police

NT Police Commander Daniel Bacon said “the most insidious” form of alcohol abuse in the territory was “its role as a catalyst, and in exacerbating, domestic and family violence”. 

“More often than not, when police respond to a report of a domestic and family violence related assault, alcohol is involved,” he said. 

The NT has long grappled with staggering rates of domestic and family violence, particularly in remote communities facing extreme disadvantage and poverty. 

About 65 per cent of men in territory prisons have been charged with domestic and family violence-related offences, according to recent data from the NT’s Department of Attorney-General and Justice.

Such offences include breaching a domestic violence order, homicide and related offences, sexual assaults and acts intended to cause serious injury. 

two female paramedics and two male police officers load a patient into an ambulance

Darwin emergency services frequently treat patients harmed by alcohol-fuelled violence.(ABC News: Samantha Dick)

Jason, a traditional owner from a remote NT community, was one of them. 

The ABC has chosen not to use his real name to protect the identity of his former partner. 

Jason was jailed in 2020 over a horrendous alcohol-fuelled attack that left the mother of his children with life-threatening injuries.

“I brutally attacked my ex-partner, to be honest,” he said. 

“I didn’t know what I was doing.”

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