A criminal who had spent a quarter-century in prison killed a prostitute so he could return to jail and become "king of barbecues".
That was the chilling evidence given by Queensland Law Society past president Bill Potts to a parliamentary committee examining a bill to shake-up parole laws.
Mr Potts, a criminal lawyer, said many years ago he acted for a man who was charged with the murder of a 20-year-old prostitute.
"He had one previous conviction, this fellow, and that was for murder," Mr Potts said.
"He'd been in jail for 24, 25 years. He'd come out, he'd not been reintroduced into society, this was quite some time ago, there was none of that reintroduction into society.
"He was just chucked out the door with a bus fare and the address of the local dole office.
"Surprise, surprise, within three months, he murdered a prostitute for the entire purpose - I'm sorry, he murdered a person - and he did so with the entire intent to go back to jail.
"It was the most egregious, horrible thing I've ever had to do.
"And it was because there had been no proper dealings with the issue of bringing him back into society.
"A young woman forfeited her life for the fact that this man would be the king of barbecues on a Friday night in the prison."
The man pleaded guilty and received a sentence of life imprisonment.
Mr Potts shared the case as an example of the importance of funding rehabilitation programs, the need for support in reintroducing people back into society and how prisoners could become institutionalised after a long stint in jail.
He'd been in jail for 24, 25 years. He'd come out, he'd not been reintroduced into society. Surprise, surprise, within three months, he murdered a person with the entire intent to go back.
"Often by the time they do get out, they are so entirely institutionalised they're almost useless in open society," he said.
Mr Potts shared an example of another man, who was returned to jail for committing another offence, who was first locked up before mobile phones or DVDs existed.
"He had not since the age of 21 earned money and had to budget," he said.
"In jail, he was a hero because he was the tough guy in the yard, in society he's a nobody."
Mr Potts said if people were let out of jail, they needed to be reintroduced into society properly so they did not go back to imprisonment because it was the only thing they knew.
"We can't warehouse people forever unless they are in the absolute worst category."
Mr Potts said there was a hard core of criminals who viewed going to jail as "part of the process".
"It's the cost of being a criminal," he said.
"But the great bulk of the people we're dealing with have got social issues, psychiatric issues, drug addiction issues... many of them are victims themselves."
The Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee is considering the Corrective Services (Parole Board) and Other Legislation Amendment bill.
The changes would create a single parole board, appoint a full-time president and deputy president - to be retired judges - and allow corrective services officers to monitor parolees via GPS trackers, and follows a review conducted by Walter Sofrnoff QC.
Sisters Inside chief executive officer Debbie Kilroy said GPS trackers would not stop crime.
"A person could go with a GPS monitor, commit an offence but we know that they're there.
"They're not a device that's actually going to make community safe, they're actually just a device to tell us where you or I have been.
"We deem them as a fundamental waste of taxpayers' money, that money can be supported for people in the community and the resources that a required to wrap around them."
Bar Association of Queensland criminal law committee chair Elizabeth Wilson said it should be up to the parole board to order monitoring.
"It will ensure consistency," she said.
Ms Wilson said the bill provided the parole board with a "lot more rigour".
"The chair has to be a person that is a retired judge of the high court, the supreme court, or who is the counsel deems has appropriate qualifications," she said.
The committee is due to report by April 28.
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