The Department’s Annual Report for the 2011-12 financial year states that 1,342 funeral and dangerous illness leave applications were received with 41 per cent being approved. Although data on funeral leave and dangerous illness leave is generally linked for the Department’s reporting purposes, this review found that attendances by prisoners visiting dangerously ill persons over the last decade have been a small minority (12%) of total attendances.
Applications for Funeral and Dangerous Illness Leave
* The daily average populations for adult and youth custodial were taken from the Department of Corrective Services Annual Reports for the respective financial years.
The daily average prison population (DAP) increased by 16.4 per cent from 2008-2009 to 2011-12. Surprisingly, though, there was a 10.8 per cent decrease in applications for funeral and dangerous illness attendances over the same time. Therefore, despite the daily average population increasing by almost 800 people, applications and approved attendances decreased by more than 50. Another way of expressing these figures is that in 2008-2009, there were 14.4 attendances per 100 of the DAP of prisoners and detainees. By 2010-12 the figure had declined to 9.2.