People with Complex Needs and the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Efforts to enhance efficiency in service provision have produced increasingly sophisticated targeting in the various human service domains. In the context of changing demographics, the aftermath of de-institutionalisation and governments contracting out services with tight specifications, this has often had an unintended outcome of excluding those with multiple needs, leaving some people in our community especially vulnerable. Some appear to be at increasingly high risk of being ‘serviced’ in our state run prisons. This paper shares the experience of one endeavour to provide an over-sighting service (under legislation) to people with multiple and complex needs. It describes and reflects on the features of the initiative that have relevance and possible pointers for the criminal justice system suggesting that the service systems themselves are more complex than those needing service.