tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/imprisonment-costs-15932/articlesImprisonment costs – The Conversation2015-06-17T20:21:10Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/390442015-06-17T20:21:10Z2015-06-17T20:21:10ZElectronic innovation can help fix an archaic, crowded prison system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79014/original/image-20150423-29722-1fj56l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Electronic monitoring typically involves fitting offenders with tamper-proof bracelets to monitor whether they are abiding by conditions imposed on them.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisyarzab/6510121061/in/photolist-aVh5bz-4v83YW-4v3Sj4-4v3RJR-cMbU3w-nf2i45-4amGfd-8kpoGi-4HdDs8-aiAn2y-4v3YMT-bHhuYM-bkL9M5-p78PLA-gVPq7P-nWQez9-nEsz8y-9QQFWD-aEVK1S-aBAp5J-6V2B4u-cAxjXC-f5sd5J-8U32Zt-7kqRhR-gSYT95-hwPAnG-dpN58X-gfyrTF-p78PMN-p78PHu-p78PNu-bFa7fT-xB8uL-8v2EYn-aa42qS-dPW92n-drcKX2">Flickr/Chris Yarzab</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/beyond-prison">Beyond Prison</a> series, which examines better ways to reduce re-offending, following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment</a> series.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Victoria’s prisons are reported to be <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-15/victorian-prisons-the-most-violent-in-australia/6319186">the most violent in the country</a>, as an overcrowded system struggles to house a growing prison population. Prison officers are reportedly assaulted every three days and inmate fights occur daily. Prison guards are to trial capsicum spray in response.</p>
<p>This should not come as a surprise. The Victorian Auditor-General <a href="http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/publications/20121128-Prisons/20121128-Prisons.pdf">found in 2012</a> that the system was near capacity. Last year, the Ombudsman <a href="https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/getattachment/2998b6e6-491a-4dfe-b081-9d86fe4d4921">warned</a> that violence was a natural consequence of overcrowding.</p>
<p>Imprisonment rates across Australia have risen dramatically in recent times. In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-imprisonment-victoria-is-leading-the-nation-backwards-38905">traditionally low-imprisonment state</a> of Victoria, the prison population grew by <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/publications/victorias-prison-population-2002-2012">38% in the ten years from 2002 to 2012</a>. The growth accelerated between 2009 and 2014, with the number of prisoners increasing by <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-prison-numbers-surged-under-napthine-20141211-1258jw.html">40% in five years</a>.</p>
<p>“Law and order” political agendas have reduced judicial sentencing discretion, <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/news-media/news/phasing-out-suspended-sentences-complete-today">phased out</a> suspended sentences and restricted the availability of bail and parole. We built more prisons, but even then <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/prisoners-moved-into-shipping-containers-20140106-30d23.html">shipping containers</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-16/violence-and-escapes-in-victorian-prisons-linked-to-overcrowding/6322620">fold-out beds</a> were needed to warehouse the overflow.</p>
<p>Penal populism has trumped evidence-based policy. The previous Coalition government seemingly disregarded its own Sentencing Advisory Council’s conclusions about the <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/publications/does-imprisonment-deter">ineffectiveness</a> of prison in reducing crime.</p>
<p>Local statistics also run counter to encouraging international trends. These suggest that the world’s 200-year honeymoon with the prison may be ending.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/a-rare-opportunity-on-criminal-justice.html?_&_r=1">In the US</a>, the global financial crisis brought into sharp relief the costs of hyper-incarceration, especially of African-Americans. Suddenly, even conservatives questioned why housing felons should divert funds away from schools and roads. The mounting evidence that prison is ineffective in deterring and rehabilitating criminals, and that incarceration itself may increase the risk of re-offending, was finally heeded.</p>
<p>Even in states <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/best-state-in-america-texas-where-both-crime-and-incarceration-rates-are-falling/2014/12/05/e0a0f4a8-7b07-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html">such as Texas</a>, prison numbers fell. In 2011, that state <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional/texas-first-prison-is-closing-1/nRdBp/">closed a prison</a> for the first time in its history.</p>
<p>The new Victorian Labor government has tentatively signalled the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/jury-out-on-labor-prison-plan-20150123-12w1rn.html">need for change</a>. Yet it too clearly fears electoral backlash and has conceded that prison populations are likely to continue to rise.</p>
<p>Both sides of politics have invested huge political capital touting the prison as the solution to crime. The Australian public responded too well and the punitive cycle escalated. </p>
<p>How do we now un-sell this expensive, ineffective and cruel form of punishment?</p>
<h2>Punitiveness and the national identity</h2>
<p>The pull of punitivism is a legacy of Australia’s colonial history. As Robert Hughes argued in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fatal_Shore">The Fatal Shore</a>, in the early days of the colony any infraction of the rules was viciously punished, and this knee-jerk punitiveness maintains its hold in contemporary Australian discourse about punishment.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/rciadic/">Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody</a>, for instance, drew connections between Australia’s early dispossession of Indigenous people and their high levels of incarceration. Punitiveness is also evident in offshore processing of asylum seekers in prison-like conditions (perhaps not surprising, given the employment of former prison staff in the centres) <a href="http://unhcr.org.au/unhcr/images/2013-11-26%20Report%20of%20UNHCR%20Visit%20to%20Manus%20Island%20PNG%2023-25%20October%202013.pdf">deemed inhumane</a> by the United Nations.</p>
<p>In Australia, dubious utilitarian ideologies about general deterrence, with imprisonment its ready touchstone, prevail. In pandering to public punitiveness, politicians have forgotten a countervailing strand in Australia’s history and national identity: innovation.</p>
<h2>Australia and penal innovation</h2>
<p>The great English judge, Lord Denning, was once asked about innovative sentencing options. He noted that the last major innovation was probably “transportation”. That, he quipped, had worked out rather well.</p>
<p>In the 18th century, Australia was the great social experiment. The world watched to see if this society of convicts could fashion a new social order.</p>
<p>Acute labour shortages were the impetus for another innovative sentencing option, the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=oSBcAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Ticket of Leave scheme</a>. This allowed convicts to complete their sentences working and living in the community. The scheme kept the fledgling colonial economy afloat and is reputedly the forerunner of parole and probation schemes internationally.</p>
<p>Australian contributions continue to be influential. John Braithwaite’s ideas about re-integrative shaming – a shift away from punitive social control to approaches that shame the offender but simultaneously offer re-integration into the community — have spawned an entire “alternative” system of restorative justice processes all over the world.</p>
<p>Appeal to Australia’s nationalist pride in its history as an innovator may untie the prison’s shackles. While far from perfect, the emerging technology of electronic monitoring may present a publicly acceptable alternative to prison.</p>
<h2>The rise of electronic monitoring</h2>
<p>Electronic monitoring was <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/05/22/314874232/the-history-of-electronic-monitoring-devices">initially developed</a> as a behavioural-modification tool in experimental and clinical psychology. The technology has been applied to criminal justice since 1983, when a New Mexican judge, inspired by a Spider-Man comic, ordered its use to track probationers.</p>
<p>Nowadays, electronic monitoring takes various forms across the world. These typically involve offenders being fitted with tamper-proof bracelets. The devices monitor whether offenders are abiding by conditions, such as geographical constraints, curfews, attending work or study, or abstaining from drugs or alcohol.</p>
<p>Electronic monitoring can be used pre-trial, as a primary sentence or post-sentence. It operates in <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/conferences/other/smith_russell/2010-07-brcss.pdf">each form in Australia</a>.</p>
<p>To date, however, electronic monitoring has not really been countenanced as a legitimate, large-scale alternative to divert offenders away from prison. Victoria’s brief use of home detention initially aimed to do this, but public criticism that it was “too soft” led to its removal from the statute books in 2012. It remains an optional condition that may be imposed under a <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/num_act/saossaoma201332o2013713/s25.html">community correction order</a>.</p>
<p>Any alternative to prison must be seen to satisfy sentencing’s twin <a href="http://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/about-sentencing/sentencing-process/sentencing-principles-purposes-factors">objectives</a> of punishing offenders and protecting the community. The research on electronic monitoring’s impact on crime is still inconclusive, but the indications are that, in many cases, it likely meets these purposes as well as, or even better than, prison. </p>
<p>In its <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2014/342.html">first guideline judgment</a>, Victoria’s Court of Appeal recently recognised that even in cases of relatively serious offending, properly conditioned sentences served in the community can both appropriately punish offenders and protect the public.</p>
<p>On its face, electronic monitoring also has lower operational costs than prison. However, once rehabilitation services are factored in, savings are more properly couched as reducing the costs of re-offending.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79024/original/image-20150423-10331-1cig2i0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79024/original/image-20150423-10331-1cig2i0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79024/original/image-20150423-10331-1cig2i0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79024/original/image-20150423-10331-1cig2i0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79024/original/image-20150423-10331-1cig2i0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79024/original/image-20150423-10331-1cig2i0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79024/original/image-20150423-10331-1cig2i0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Electronic monitoring technology isn’t foolproof but it is an advance on the ‘one size fits all’ punishment of prison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.omnilink.com/electronic-monitoring/">From www.omnilink.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Electronic monitoring, like all punishment, is imperfect. Failure is built into any system that tries to control and regulate human behaviour. </p>
<p>The technology is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11491937">prone to failure</a>. There will be inevitable scandals when human cunning and system break downs lead to spectacular breaches. Electronic monitoring also presents significant net-widening and net-strengthening challenges (that is, more people are subjected to intensive forms of criminal justice control).</p>
<p>These negative effects are hard to overcome and any policy and research agenda must address these. But a “one size fits all” approach to punishment, like prison, is unacceptable. </p>
<h2>Is prison’s time nearly up?</h2>
<p>It is time for a more open dialogue about the risks and limitations of all forms of punishment. We need calibrated and nuanced community-based options to meet the specific circumstances of each offender and their crime. A bipartisan preparedness to raise the level of public debate about the full gamut of options should replace the invocation of prison as a “quick fix” for both crime and electoral popularity.</p>
<p>The days of the prison, an 18th-century industrial institution, as the dominant form of punishment are probably numbered. Electronic monitoring is one option more compatible with the 21st-century virtual age, in which containment and isolation need not be physical to be effective.</p>
<p>Jeremy Bentham, the architect of the prison and the great-grandfather of utilitarianism, understood that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… all punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil. Upon the principle of utility, if it ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in as far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For better or worse, electronic monitoring probably is our best, albeit imperfect, opportunity to reframe a public dialogue about the purposes, risks and relative costs of punishment.</p>
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<p><em>You can read other articles in the Beyond Prison series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/beyond-prison">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The days of prison, an 18th-century industrial institution, as the justice system’s dominant form of punishment may be numbered. Electronic monitoring of offenders is one promising alternative.Kathy Laster, Director, Sir Zelman Cowen Centre, Victoria UniversityRyan Kornhauser, Research Assistant, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/399992015-04-26T19:30:50Z2015-04-26T19:30:50ZOur $3b-a-year system is flying blind in supporting ex-prisoners<p><em>This article is one of several following up The Conversation’s series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment</a>, which provides snapshots of imprisonment trends in each state and territory.</em></p>
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<p>Nobody knows how many people get out of prison in Australia each year. This fact is so striking that it bears repetition. Despite recurring investment of more than <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/recurring/report-on-government-services/2015/justice/corrective-services">$3 billion a year in our correctional systems</a>, we simply cannot determine how many people move through those systems each year.</p>
<p>It’s not that this information is difficult to find, or that it’s not publicly available. We simply don’t know.</p>
<h2>Understanding throughput is important</h2>
<p>For other large, state-based and publicly funded systems, such as hospitals and schools, information on throughput is readily available, and rightly so. These systems are funded by the taxpayer, for the taxpayer, and routine public reporting is critical to ensuring transparency and accountability. </p>
<p>Information on throughput is also critical to service planning: if we don’t know how many people use the service, or what these people look like, how can we possibly ensure that the service is appropriate in scale and character?</p>
<p>Yet we can only estimate how many people move through our prisons each year. We don’t have even a basic demographic description of these people. This information is important because almost everyone who goes to prison comes back out again, and effective support during the transition from prison to community is critical to preventing re-offending. </p>
<p>Effective transitional support can also reduce the risk of other poor outcomes that disproportionately affect ex-prisoners, such as preventable death, the spread of infectious disease and expensive, avoidable hospitalisation. </p>
<p>Effective support for people coming out of prison is therefore critical to public safety, public health and the public purse. But we don’t know how many people in Australia need this sort of transitional support.</p>
<h2>What <em>do</em> we know?</h2>
<p>It’s not that we don’t know anything about the people we incarcerate: for well over a decade the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has produced a <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4512.0">quarterly publication</a> that reports how many people were in prison on an average day, broken down by basic demographic characteristics. For example, we know that Indigenous Australians are over-represented in our prisons by an age-adjusted factor of 13. The ABS also produces an <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4517.0">annual publication</a> reporting on the number and characteristics of people in prison on June 30 of each year.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the redundancy in these two publications, so far so good. The problem is, people being released from prison look different to those in prison, and there are a lot more of them. How can this be?</p>
<p>For the purposes of illustration, let’s consider our hospitals. According to the <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129546922">Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)</a>, in 2012-13 there were about 86,300 hospital beds in Australia and for the 42% of patients who stayed in hospital overnight, the average length of stay was just 5.6 days. Because of this staggering throughput, there were almost 9.4 million hospital separations – when someone is discharged from hospital – in the 2012-13 financial year. This is more than 100 times the number of hospital beds, which is a pretty good proxy for the number of people in hospital on the average day.</p>
<p>Now let’s consider our prisons. Across the country we have almost 34,000 people in prison on the average day and we’re spending billions building more prison beds, at a rate well in excess of population growth. Prisons are, by definition, a growth industry. </p>
<p>The average expected length of stay for sentenced prisoners is 1.8 years, but for those on remand – around one in four prisoners – the average length of stay is just three months. Almost two in five of those released from prison return within two years, most of them within the first year. Those with unresolved substance use and mental health problems are more likely to return to custody.</p>
<p>So how many “prison separations” do we have each year in Australia? How many people does this represent? We don’t know.</p>
<p>In 2012, the AIHW asked the states and territories to provide this information, for inclusion in a report on the <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129543948">health of Australia’s prisoners</a>. On June 30 of that year there were 29,236 prisoners in Australia. Based on the information it received, the AIHW estimated that 33,751 individuals – 15% greater than the average daily number in prison – were released during the 2011-12 financial year.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this estimate was hobbled by the fact that one jurisdiction was unable to provide a count of either receptions or releases, while another provided a count of separations rather than individuals.</p>
<h2>What did our research find?</h2>
<p>More recently, we attempted to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1753-6405.12346/abstract">estimate this figure</a> by extrapolating from detailed throughput data provided by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. After accounting for demographic differences between the jurisdictions, we estimated that the number of people released from prison each year in Australia is around 25% greater than the daily number in prison. Applied to the most recent ABS statistics, this equates to an estimated 42,239 persons released from prison in 2013-14 – 8,448 more than the “number of prisoners” reported by the ABS.</p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, we found that the characteristics of people being released from prison differ meaningfully from those in prison. Those being released were disproportionately young, Indigenous and female. For every young Indigenous woman in prison on the average day, we estimated that about 3.7 young Indigenous women were being released from prison each year.</p>
<p>Is this dramatic over-representation of particularly vulnerable people taken into account in the planning and funding of transitional programs for prisoners in Australia? It seems unlikely.</p>
<h2>Fix the data to fix the system</h2>
<p>So what needs to be done? First, an appropriate national body, probably the ABS, needs to commit to annual reporting of prison throughput in Australia. This should include at least the basic demographic characteristics of those released. It’s not rocket science, and would for the first time provide a platform for considering whether transitional programs for prisoners are appropriate in scale and character. </p>
<p>Then comes the hard bit: bringing evidence-based transitional programs to scale and ensuring that they are appropriate to the target population. With a rapidly increasing incarceration rate, enormous capital and recurring expenditure on the prison system, and predictably poor health, economic and offending outcomes for those released from prison, it’s about time we stopped flying blind in service planning for ex-prisoners.</p>
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<p><em>Alex Avery was a co-author of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1753-6405.12346/full">the research paper</a> published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, on which this article is based.</em> </p>
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<p><em>You can read the other articles in the State of Imprisonment series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39999/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Kinner is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow. He receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council, and co-convenes the Justice Health Special Interest Group in the Public Health Association of Australia.</span></em></p>We simply don’t know how many prisoners are released each year, nor their demographic characteristics. As a result, we cannot tailor services that would reduce ex-prisoners’ risks of re-offending.Stuart Kinner, Professor, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389882015-04-22T01:30:55Z2015-04-22T01:30:55ZState of imprisonment: Tasmania escapes ‘law and order’ infection<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78180/original/image-20150416-23333-hzckiw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most of Tasmania's relatively small prison population is housed at Risdon Prison Complex</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risdon_Prison_Complex#/media/File:Risdon.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/'Risdon' by Wiki ian</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of The Conversation’s series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment</a>, which provides snapshots of imprisonment trends in each state and territory. The intention is to provide a basis for informed public discussion of imprisonment policies and of the costs and consequences for Australia of rising rates of incarceration.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EPrisoner%20characteristics,%20states%20and%20territories%7E10000">Imprisonment rates in Tasmania</a> have steadily declined over the past decade – the only state or territory where this has happened. From a high of almost 150 prisoners per 100,000 adults in 2005, present rates are around 112 per 100,000. This translates to fewer than 500 people.</p>
<p>The correctional project in Tasmania is therefore quite small compared to other Australian states. </p>
<p><br></p>
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<p>This is reflected in the <a href="http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/prisonservice/home">Tasmanian Corrections infrastructure</a>: Risdon Prison Complex (which includes medium- and maximum-security units), Ron Barwick Minimum-Security Prison and Mary Hutchinson Women’s Prison, all on the same general site in Hobart. Hobart Reception Prison (in the CBD) and Launceston Reception Prison also provide secure containment facilities. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, corrective services spending per prisoner per day, as measured by net recurrent and capital costs, is <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/facts/1-20/2013/7_resources.html">among the highest</a> in the country. Compared with alternatives offered by community corrections, incarceration costs a lot.</p>
<p>This high cost, in turn, raises issues of value for money (can other sanctions reduce re-offending and do so more cheaply?) and the desirability of using imprisonment more generally (does the expenditure lead to less or more crime?). </p>
<h2>What has Tasmania done to cut imprisonment rates?</h2>
<p>Partly in response to these questions, the shrinking of the prison population has been accompanied by several measures:</p>
<ul>
<li> expansion of better support services within the corrections system</li>
<li> establishment of innovative projects that engage offenders</li>
<li> use of systemic measures that encourage rehabilitation ideals. </li>
</ul>
<p>Examples of support and rehabilitation programs include:</p>
<ul>
<li>focused health programs to limit the spread of Hepatitis C</li>
<li>tailored rehabilitation programs for prisoners convicted of sex offences</li>
<li>literacy and parenting projects such as “Storybook Dads” to enable inmates to read and record stories for their children</li>
<li>a community garden.</li>
</ul>
<p>In another indication of recent enlightened penal practice, prisoners have a wide variety of opportunities to “give back” to the wider community. The Tasmanian Prison Service has consciously fostered the participation of prisoners in community-oriented activities.</p>
<p>In 2013-2014, over 18,900 leave permits were granted. This is a massive increase from the 589 permits granted in 2009-2010. </p>
<p>Some of these have involved helping local residents and farmers with bushfire recovery efforts. Other initiatives have included environmental restoration projects. Prisoners also provide a welcome and ready pool of umpires for local cricket and football games. </p>
<h2>Progressive, cost-effective policy has a context</h2>
<p>These changes in Tasmania have taken place in a particular economic, political and cultural context. </p>
<p>One aspect of this is that Tasmania has a population of around half a million people. The tax base is correspondingly small. </p>
<p>Tasmania is, not surprisingly then, a “poor” state in terms of state finances. There simply is not a lot of money to go around, so anything that constitutes a drain on the budget is problematic. </p>
<p>Nor is Tasmania a particularly punitive place. Most elections do not feature the <a href="https://theconversation.com/justice-reinvestment-saves-huge-costs-of-law-and-order-auctions-33018">“law and order auctions”</a> characteristic of mainland states. </p>
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<p>For most of the past decade there has been bipartisan support for progressive policy. Initiatives include better rehabilitative support for prisoners, an emphasis on diversion for offenders with drug and mental health issues and on greater opportunity for offenders to repair the harm. Whether a Green/Labor or Liberal justice minister, most of the rhetoric, most of the time, has been broadly supportive of decarceration and desistance strategies. </p>
<p>The relatively progressive approach to matters of crime and punishment has been reinforced at important institutional points.</p>
<p>The general approach of the Tasmanian Police has been measured and generally appropriate to circumstance. It has incorporated aspects such as youth diversion, respectful but authoritative responses to domestic violence, and educational campaigns to reduce harmful behaviour.</p>
<p>The Magistrates Court has adopted measures such as court-mandated drug diversion and mental health court lists. These have incorporated therapeutic responses to problems formerly perceived in solely criminal justice terms. </p>
<p>Senior bureaucrats in the Department of Justice and within the prison service have gelled in terms of broad philosophical approach. They have worked with other agencies and relevant ministers to forge pathways that offer greater promise for reducing the numbers of prisoners and helping those who remain to desist from re-offending.</p>
<p>Across the criminal justice enterprises, staff have been carefully recruited to ensure persons of integrity, capacity and the right skill sets are employed. Recruitment processes, and the quality and quantity of pre-service and in-service training and education, remain important components of the wider cultural changes in recent years. </p>
<h2>Making progress on inevitable problems</h2>
<p>Any system that is based, inherently, upon coercion and containment is always going to encounter difficulties. Prison-related issues continue to bubble away. </p>
<p>Some problems are due to the “natural” rhythms of such institutions, such as inmate-officer conflict. The key issue here is whether such conflict is particular to specific prisoner or prison officer interactions, or endemic to the institution because of the wider occupational culture. </p>
<p>More can always be done to support this or that program or project. Yet by and large Tasmania has, for the moment, got things right as far as the general trend is going. Locking up fewer people, and doing something positive with those inside, is an important achievement and ongoing mission.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78177/original/image-20150416-23340-1hvlyl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78177/original/image-20150416-23340-1hvlyl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78177/original/image-20150416-23340-1hvlyl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78177/original/image-20150416-23340-1hvlyl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78177/original/image-20150416-23340-1hvlyl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78177/original/image-20150416-23340-1hvlyl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78177/original/image-20150416-23340-1hvlyl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Attorney-General Vanessa Goodwin wants to abolish suspended sentences, but has wisely sought advice on how to avoid increasing prisoner numbers as a result.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.premier.tas.gov.au/cabinet">Tasmanian Government</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Present endeavours and tendencies are nonetheless fragile and potentially under threat. The attorney-general, for instance, has foreshadowed the abolition of suspended sentences. </p>
<p>Fortunately, she has asked the Sentencing Advisory Council for advice so that prisoner numbers do not increase as a consequence. What is legislated at the end of the day remains to be seen. </p>
<p>Furthermore, budgetary pressures at the whole-of-government level have translated into significant fiscal bumps. At the specific institutional level, the prison service has not been immune. This is hamstringing expansion of existing initiatives and curtailing other possible rehabilitative directions.</p>
<p>Even so, widespread community support for prisoner leave programs continues. Thankfully, punitive politics remains muted in the Tasmanian political landscape. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the State of Imprisonment series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob White is a member of the Tasmanian Sentencing Advisory Council.</span></em></p>Imprisonment rates in Tasmania have steadily declined over the past decade – the only state or territory where this has happened. That is a result of progressive and effective corrections policies.Rob White, Professor of Criminology, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/391192015-04-17T00:46:43Z2015-04-17T00:46:43ZState of imprisonment: can ACT achieve a ‘human rights’ prison?<p><em>This article is part of The Conversation’s series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment</a>, which provides snapshots of imprisonment trends in each state and territory. The intention is to provide a basis for informed public discussion of imprisonment policies and of the costs and consequences for Australia of rising rates of incarceration.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The first prison in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the <a href="http://www.cs.act.gov.au/custodial_operations/types_of_detention/alexander_maconochie_centre">Alexander Maconochie Centre</a> (AMC), opened in March 2009. The AMC is an open-campus 300-bed facility, which accommodates all unsentenced and sentenced male and female prisoners. </p>
<p>The ACT Corrective Services <a href="http://cs.act.gov.au/custodial_operations">website</a> states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Alexander Maconochie Centre emphasises rehabilitation, compliance with human rights principles and adherance to the Healthy Prison Concept.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to the website, a healthy prison is one in which everyone:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>is and feels safe </p></li>
<li><p>is treated with respect and as a fellow human being</p></li>
<li><p>is encouraged to improve him/herself and is given every opportunity to do so through the provision of purposeful activity</p></li>
<li><p>is enabled to maintain contact with their families and is prepared for release.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>About 40% of prisoners (including all women inmates) live in cottages with separate bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, laundry, living area and patio. Apart from a one-hour lunchtime lockdown, prisoners can move about freely. They are <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/a-view-of-pale-hills">locked in the cottages at night</a>.</p>
<p>In spite of this, recent figures indicate that the AMC <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/acts-prison-trails-other-states-in-giving-inmates-time-out-of-cells-and-work-20150129-130ucr.html">performs poorly</a> in terms of prisoners’ time out of cells and participation in employment. </p>
<p>The ACT also has the highest proportion of <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/act-prison-rates-hit-10year-high-abs-figures-show-20141211-124w00.html">prisoners previously imprisoned</a> (72%, compared with a national average of 59%). On the other hand, it has the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/02/02/how-much-does-it-cost-keep-people-australian-jails">highest proportion of prisoners in education</a>, at 83%, compared with a national average of just 33%. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.hrc.act.gov.au/res/HRC%20Womens%20Audit%202014.pdf">2014 human rights audit</a> of the treatment of women at the AMC was generally positive, but made 61 recommendations for improvement. The government has <a href="http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/open_government/inform/act_government_media_releases/rattenbury/2014/government-response-to-human-rights-audit-at-amc">accepted most of these recommendations</a>. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2577558">others have suggested</a> that more needs to be done to meet the needs of female prisoners.</p>
<h2>Prison numbers skyrocket</h2>
<p>The prison rapidly <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/ct-editorial/poor-decisions-continue-to-haunt-canberras-jail-20150409-1mh77k.html">filled to capacity</a>. The AMC had 343 people in full-time custody in the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4512.0December%20Quarter%202014?OpenDocument">December 2014 quarter</a>.</p>
<p>Of these, 27% were unsentenced, 19% were Indigenous and 5% were female. The imprisonment rate was 114 per 100,000, well below the national rate of 190. </p>
<p>However, the ACT imprisonment rate has risen 25% over the last <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/88BDA5B4F259EB63CA257B880012A309?opendocument">two years</a>, compared with a national increase of 12%. Over this time, the number of ACT prisoners increased by 28%, compared with a national increase of 16%. Notably, the number of Indigenous prisoners increased by 47%, compared with 17% nationally.</p>
<p>In April 2014, the ACT government announced it would <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/54-million-jail-expansion-to-begin-soon-20140428-37ebr.html">spend $54 million</a> building a new 56-cell block with 80 beds and a 30-bed special care centre for detainees requiring intensive support. The special care centre is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-09/construction-has-started-on-an-expansion-of-canberra-jail/5731528">due to open</a> in late 2015 and the cell block in mid-2016. </p>
<p>Significantly, prisoner costs are already the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/02/02/how-much-does-it-cost-keep-people-australian-jails">highest in the country,</a> at $394 per day, compared with a national average of $292. </p>
<h2>Key policy developments</h2>
<p><strong>Throughcare</strong></p>
<p>In December 2011, the government agreed to an extended <a href="http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/policystrategic/throughcare">Throughcare policy framework</a> to “better support offenders’ re-integration into the community”. The program was piloted in 2012-13, with a further <a href="http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/open_government/inform/act_government_media_releases/rattenbury/2014/improving-offender-rehabilitation-by-extending-throughcare">$2.2 million allocated</a> in the 2014-15 budget. According to the <a href="http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/open_government/inform/act_government_media_releases/rattenbury/2014/improving-offender-rehabilitation-by-extending-throughcare">corrections minister</a>, the program:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>identifies support needs across the areas of housing, health, income and basic life skills and then works intensively with former detainees to reintegrate back into the community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There has been some initial success in keeping extended Throughcare clients from returning to custody. This is mainly due to the intensive case management. The program will be independently evaluated in 2015.</p>
<p><strong>Legislative Assembly inquiry</strong></p>
<p>On March 24 2015, the Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety released a 400-page report on its inquiry into sentencing in the ACT. The committee’s <a href="http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/707212/JACS-Ctee-report-for-Inquiry-into-Sentencing-FINAL.pdf">recommendations</a> include that the government:</p>
<ul>
<li>introduce an adequately resourced intensive correction orders regime</li>
<li>increase the alternatives to remand</li>
<li>evaluate all prisoner rehabilitation programs and ensure evaluation is part of future program planning and delivery</li>
<li>assess the resources required to adequately fund the Throughcare program and apply that level of resourcing to the program</li>
<li>institute enhanced reporting on recidivism and focus on measuring performance against those figures</li>
<li>amend legislation to require courts to consider the Indigenous status of offenders at sentencing</li>
<li>engage the ACT Indigenous community and provide diverse sentencing options to reduce rates of Indigenous imprisonment</li>
<li>legislate to allow the conditional release of detainees who are the primary carer of young children to serve their sentence away from the AMC</li>
<li>legislate to enable courts to make parole orders and set parole conditions at the time the offender is sentenced for shorter sentences.</li>
</ul>
<p>In addition, the committee recommended that services and programs available to sentenced prisoners be made available on a voluntary basis to accused persons on bail and prisoners on remand.</p>
<p><strong>Abolition of periodic detention</strong></p>
<p>In March 2014, the government announced it would <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/correction-order-shift-as-weekend-detention-phased-out-20140330-35s68.html">abolish periodic detention by 2016-17</a>. Defence lawyers <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/correction-order-shift-as-weekend-detention-phased-out-20140330-35s68.html">were not consulted</a> and criticised the decision. </p>
<p>In November 2014, the government <a href="http://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/2014-58/default.asp">passed legislation</a> to prevent courts from combining periodic detention with full-time imprisonment or imposing a periodic detention order that would extend beyond June 30 2016. </p>
<p><strong>Justice Reform Strategy and Justice Reinvestment Strategy</strong></p>
<p>In May 2014, the government <a href="http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/open_government/inform/act_government_media_releases/corbell/2014/sentencing-and-justice-reform-program">announced </a> it would “pursue a new justice reform strategy focused on enhancing the legal framework for sentencing and restorative justice”. The attorney-general stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The reforms will give the ACT a state-of-the-art approach to dealing with criminal behaviour and reducing recidivism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The government committed $734,000 to the initiative, including $250,000 for research and evaluation. The strategy is informed by an <a href="https://cdn.justice.act.gov.au/resources/uploads/JACS/PDF/Justice_Reform_Strategy_Advisory_Group_membership.pdf">advisory group</a>, with representatives from government agencies, the justice sector and academia. </p>
<p>The group’s <a href="https://cdn.justice.act.gov.au/resources/uploads/JACS/PDF/Justice_Reform_Strategy_-_terms_of_reference.pdf">terms of reference</a> include consideration of: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>innovations in sentencing nationally and internationally </p></li>
<li><p>the principle that imprisonment should only be used where no other penalty is appropriate </p></li>
<li><p>how restorative justice can be expanded </p></li>
<li><p>how therapeutic jurisprudence principles can be supported and </p></li>
<li><p>the over-representation of Indigenous people in the justice system.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Ministers were due to receive the first-stage report by the end of March 2015. This report is to <a href="https://cdn.justice.act.gov.au/resources/uploads/JACS/PDF/Justice_Reform_Strategy_-_terms_of_reference.pdf">provide recommendations</a> on legislative and other measures for a new community-based sentencing alternative to imprisonment.</p>
<p>The second-stage report is to be delivered by the end of July 2016. It will <a href="https://cdn.justice.act.gov.au/resources/uploads/JACS/PDF/Justice_Reform_Strategy_-_terms_of_reference.pdf">provide recommendations</a> on legislative and other options to reform sentencing laws and practice in the ACT. These include options that relate to <a href="http://www.restorativejustice.org/">restorative justice</a> and <a href="http://aija.org.au/index.php/research/australasian-therapeutic-jurisprudence-clearinghouse/the-concept-of-therapeutic-jurisprudence">therapeutic jurisprudence</a>.</p>
<p>This strategy is separate from but intersects with the <a href="http://www.justice.act.gov.au/page/view/3829/title/justice-reinvestment-strategy">Justice Reinvestment Strategy</a>. Also funded in the 2014-15 budget, this involves a four-year “whole-of-government justice reinvestment approach aimed at reducing recidivism and diverting offenders, and those at risk of becoming offenders, from the justice system”.</p>
<p>This project will identify drivers of crime and criminal justice costs. It will then develop and implement new ways of <a href="https://theconversation.com/justice-reinvestment-saves-huge-costs-of-law-and-order-auctions-33018">reinvesting scarce resources</a> – both in the community and within the prison system – to achieve a more cost-beneficial impact on public safety.</p>
<p>This initiative is likewise informed by an <a href="https://cdn.justice.act.gov.au/resources/uploads/JACS/PDF/Justice_Reinvestment_Strategy_Advisory_Group_membership.pdf">advisory group</a>. Its terms of reference are currently being developed.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>As in many other Australian jurisdictions, the use of imprisonment in the ACT has increased dramatically in recent years. The impact on Indigenous people in particular is significant. </p>
<p>The government is now taking some innovative steps. However, it remains to be seen whether these will meet the promise of delivering a “state of the art” approach to criminal justice.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Addendum:</strong> After this article was published, the ACT auditor-general released <a href="http://www.audit.act.gov.au/auditreports/reports2015/Report%20No.%202%20of%202015%20The%20Rehabilitation%20of%20male%20detainees%20at%20the%20Alexander%20Maconochie%20Centre.pdf">a report</a> on the rehabilitation of male prisoners at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. The report found that:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>AMC planning for rehabilitation is ineffective as there is no rehabilitation planning framework, no evaluation framework and no finalised case management policy framework.</p></li>
<li><p>Proposed levels of rehabilitation activities and services, as anticipated in planning (prior to the opening of the AMC), were assessed and found to be inadequate. Importantly this means a “structured day” with “purposeful activity” is not being achieved for many detainees. It is therefore likely that some detainees are bored and this can compromise their rehabilitation.</p></li>
<li><p>The information management systems used at the AMC are inadequate.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The report made 10 recommendations, including that ACT Corrective Services develop a rehabilitation framework for the prison.</p>
<p>The report prompted a <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/ct-editorial/big-culture-change-needed-for-the-amc-20150420-1moozs.html">critical editorial</a> in The Canberra Times. This described the lack of rehabilitation framework as “another failure of sizeable proportion”. It also suggested: “The misfortunes surrounding the planning, construction and operation of the Alexander Maconochie Centre have become legion, and there are few signs of a let-up.”</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorana Bartels gave evidence before the ACT Legislative Assembly inquiry into sentencing, is a member of the Justice Reform Strategy and Justice Reinvestment Strategy Advisory Groups and has received funding from the ACT Government to undertake research informing the Justice Reform Strategy. </span></em></p>The ACT’s first prison opened in 2009 with lofty ideals, but rising prisoner numbers and high rates of re-imprisonment are presenting a severe test of the capital’s reformist corrections agenda.Lorana Bartels, Associate Professor, School of Law and Justice, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389862015-04-16T01:57:33Z2015-04-16T01:57:33ZState of imprisonment: lopsided incarceration rates blight West<p><em>This article is part of The Conversation’s series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment</a>, which provides snapshots of imprisonment trends in each state and territory. The intention is to provide a basis for informed public discussion of imprisonment policies and of the costs and consequences for Australia of rising rates of incarceration.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The imprisonment rate in Western Australia (WA) has historically been high, second only to the Northern Territory. While WA is Australia’s largest state, it accounts for <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3101.0Main%20Features2Sep%202014?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3101.0&issue=Sep%202014&num=&view=">11% of the population</a>. Its prison population is <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EPrisoner%20characteristics,%20states%20and%20territories%7E10000">15% of Australia’s total prison population</a>. </p>
<p>Currently, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EWestern%20Australia%7E10019">265 people per 100,000</a> adult inhabitants in WA are in prison. This is significantly higher than the national average rate of 186 per 100,000.</p>
<p>Further, while Indigenous people account for only 3% of the WA population, they make up 40% of the prison population. This is the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EImprisonment%20rates%7E10009">highest over-representation</a> of Indigenous people in Australian prisons – the imprisonment rate is 18 times that of non-Aboriginal adults. </p>
<h2>A history of Indigenous over-representation</h2>
<p>It is clear that Aboriginal over-representation in the prison population is one of the most critical concerns in the WA penal landscape. This has long historical roots, reflecting the fierce battles between first peoples and the settlers during colonisation.</p>
<p>However, the more recent problem dates from the 1950s and has been linked to the economic development of the north of WA. Many of the cattle stations where Aboriginal people worked were closed or modernised, reducing the need for their labour. </p>
<p>This development, in combination with Indigenous people getting the right to equal wages, resulted in many of them losing their work and their home, leaving their traditional land and lifestyle and moving to the cities. These shifts, together with free access to alcohol, increased Aboriginal contact with the criminal justice system. This <a href="https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/article/view/110%C2%AD">created a situation of multiple disadvantages</a>, which have been shown to be linked to increased criminal behaviour, with consequences up to now. </p>
<h2>‘Law and order’ politics</h2>
<p>Indigenous over-representation does not tell the whole story of WA’s high imprisonment rates. If all people of Aboriginal descent were removed from the calculations, the state’s imprisonment rate would be 167 per 100,000. This is still significantly above the national non-Indigenous rate of 144. So there is more to be told to explain the penal position of WA in comparison with other jurisdictions.</p>
<p>As happened in other Australian jurisdictions, throughout the 1980s WA experienced a growing “law and order” discourse. Politicians from both the left and the right advocated a “tough on crime” approach. There were further examples of such initiatives during the 1990s.</p>
<p>One of these was the introduction of <a href="http://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/lawcouncil/index.php/law-council-media/news/352-mandatory-sentencing-debate">mandatory sentences</a>. This has limited the discretionary powers of the courts by setting a mandatory minimum sentence length for certain offences. Evaluation of the impact of mandatory sentences revealed that not only didn’t they achieve their deterrent effect in a way that prevented further offending, but they were also discriminatory and primarily affected Aboriginal people. </p>
<p>Another example was the introduction of “<a href="http://blogs.watoday.com.au/theverdict/2008/06/the_truth_about.html">truth in sentencing</a>” legislation in 2003. This abolished one-third remission of sentences and made access to parole harder. While initially courts were instructed to reduce the fixed term of their sentences to compensate for the abolition of remission, this caution was later repealed to allow for tougher sentences. </p>
<p>Not all political initiatives moved into a punitive direction. On two occasions, the government tried to cut down on the use of short sentences (up to six months) to stop the “<a href="http://www.supremecourt.wa.gov.au/_files/Joint_Development_Day_DCS.pdf">revolving door effect</a>”. But in reality, these reforms led to an increase of prison terms imposed on offenders, as well as the actual time they served in prison. This points to the importance of politicians and the judiciary being on one line.</p>
<h2>Changes to parole policy</h2>
<p>Parole provides for release before the end of the sentence, under certain conditions of supervision, to aid the transition to the free community. </p>
<p>A very significant <a href="http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/more-wa-prisoners-denied-bail/story-e6frg143-1226091277531">change occurred in 2009</a>, with the appointment of a new chair of the Parole Board.</p>
<p>While WA used to have a very liberal parole policy, with a rate of release around 90%, this dropped to 21% in the period under the new chair. This, in combination with an increase of cancellations of parole orders, caused a <a href="https://audit.wa.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/report2011_11.pdf">rise of nearly 24%</a> in sentenced prisoners over a period of only eight months.</p>
<h2>Is this what the public wants?</h2>
<p>One could ask, what is wrong with all of the above if the politicians and judiciary are doing what the public wants? The core question here is if this is the case. </p>
<p>Public opinion research has demonstrated, over and again, that the public is not as punitive as assumed – even less so when given <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/401-420/tandi407.html">correct and sufficient background information</a> on offending behaviour. More importantly, it has been shown that differences in the levels of confidence in sentencing and the levels of punitiveness across the various states and territories are remarkably small. These can in no way explain the differences in imprisonment rates.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77429/original/image-20150409-15231-pormay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77429/original/image-20150409-15231-pormay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77429/original/image-20150409-15231-pormay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77429/original/image-20150409-15231-pormay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77429/original/image-20150409-15231-pormay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77429/original/image-20150409-15231-pormay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77429/original/image-20150409-15231-pormay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77429/original/image-20150409-15231-pormay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Keeping a person in prison - this one is east of Perth - costs the state an average of $345 a day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APrison_facility_east_of_Perth_western_Australia.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So it is far from certain that Western Australians wants so many people behind bars, and at such cost. The cost of keeping someone in prison is <a href="http://waamh.org.au/assets/documents/systemic-advocacy/submissions-and-briefs/20140109---wacoss-waamh-wanada-joint-submission-to-era-prisons-inquiry.pdf">$345 a day</a>, compared with $43 a day to supervise them in community services. Imprisonment is an expensive way to deal with crime.</p>
<p>Further, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EWestern%20Australia%7E10019">61% of the WA prison population</a> has been in prison before, so it doesn’t seem to reduce recidivism a great deal. </p>
<p>Finally, contrary to popular belief, <a href="http://www.police.wa.gov.au/ABOUTUS/Statistics/CrimeStatistics/tabid/1219/Default.aspx">crime rates in WA</a> – as in <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0%7E2013%7EMedia%20Release%7EReports%20of%20sexual%20assault%20increase,%20most%20other%20crimes%20down%20(Media%20Release)%7E1">other jurisdictions</a> – are going down, while imprisonment rates are going up. So it is timely to ask what purpose it serves to have so many people in prison.</p>
<p>This question becomes even more glaring when we know that the prison population is not representative of the general population. It mainly consists of people who come from difficult social and economic backgrounds, and are vulnerable in many ways. </p>
<p>Other solutions are possible, as exemplified by European countries. These generally have much lower imprisonment rates, particularly in Scandinavian countries, as do other Australian jurisdictions.</p>
<p>I am convinced that alternatives to imprisonment are a better use of taxpayers’ money. Imprisonment, as stated by law, should be the option of last resort.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hilde Tubex receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Indigenous people are jailed at a rate 18 times that of non-Aboriginal Western Australian adults, but the overall rate is high too. The great costs of this punitive approach yield few clear benefits.Hilde Tubex, Future Fellow, Crime Research Centre , The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389892015-04-15T02:12:04Z2015-04-15T02:12:04ZState of imprisonment: out one day, back the next in Queensland<p><em>This article is part of The Conversation’s series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment</a>, which provides snapshots of imprisonment trends in each state and territory. The intention is to provide a basis for informed public discussion of imprisonment policies and of the costs and consequences for Australia of rising rates of incarceration.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Queensland’s rate of imprisonment has recently undergone a reversal, following several years of what appeared to be a declining trend. Contrary to other states and territories, from 2002 to 2012 the rate of imprisonment in Queensland <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/138443A6EDB15748CA257B3C000DCA24?opendocument">dropped by 6%</a> from 168 to 159 prisoners per 100,000 adults. In 2013 this trend reversed and by 2014 the rate had reached <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EPrisoner%20characteristics,%20states%20and%20territories%7E10000">193 prisoners per 100,000</a>, a 21% increase over the 2002 figure. </p>
<p>In addition, over this period Queensland Corrective Services (QCS) has increasingly accommodated prisoners in high-security rather than low-security prisons. In 2013, <a href="http://www.correctiveservices.qld.gov.au/Publications/Corporate_Publications/Annual_Reports/2012-2013/DCS%20Annual%20Report%202012-13%20in%20full.pdf">capacity in high-security facilities</a> was at 93% compared to 63% in low-security facilities. </p>
<p>The increase in prisoner numbers and greater use of high-security facilities might seem to indicate that Queensland has recently become more punitive, with tougher and longer sentences. However, evidence suggests at least part of the rise in prison numbers may be due to the greater proportion of offenders who return to prison either following or during a period of supervision in the community.</p>
<p>For several years, Queensland has led other states and territories in these kinds of returns to prison. For example, the <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/recurring/report-on-government-services/2014/justice/download-the-volume/rogs-2014-volumec-justice.pdf">2014 Report on Government Services</a> showed that the state’s rate of returns to prisons was 34.1% compared to the Australian average 24.8%. Queensland’s rate of return was nearly nine percentage points higher than second-placed NT. </p>
<h2>What is driving the ‘revolving door’?</h2>
<p>The recent rise in imprisonment is unlikely to be due to changes in the state’s crime rate. Long-term crime trends <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-27/fact-check-qld-crime-rates-newman/6009168">show a steady decline</a> over the past 12 years. And while some might blame recent government policies, given their open promotion of “get tough” strategies related to crime control and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/12/22/3396726.htm">correctional policy</a>, the picture is a bit more complex than this. </p>
<p>One contributing factor is the increased use of court-ordered parole in combination with decreased use of suspended sentences. The Corrective Services Act 2006 (QLD) stated that parole would be the <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/recurring/report-on-government-services/2014/justice/download-the-volume/rogs-2014-volumec-justice.pdf">only option for early release</a> from prison. As a result, other forms of gradual or conditional release from prison, including work release, temporary absences or home detention, were no longer available. </p>
<p>In traditional forms of parole, parole boards determine the date of release following a period of good behaviour. Although this form of parole continued to exist for offenders sentenced to terms of three years or more, the Act introduced court-ordered parole for offenders who have committed less serious offences and are sentenced to three years or less. In these cases, courts set the date of parole release at sentencing and parole could begin at any point. In effect, offenders could serve their entire sentence in the community on parole. </p>
<p>The aim of court-ordered parole was ostensibly to increase the level of supervision for offenders in the community. All sentenced offenders would receive at least some level of supervision – though the intensity of this supervision would vary. But court-ordered parole has also been <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-has-highest-rate-of-prisoners-reoffending-while-on-parole-in-australia/story-fnihsrf2-1226689007062">pitched as an alternative</a> to suspended sentences by providing magistrates with a supervised alternative. </p>
<p>However, evidence suggests that a large proportion of these offenders either return to prison as a result of a breach, leading to suspension or cancellation of the order, or after committing a new offence. For instance, our research indicates that about one in four court-ordered parolees return to prison on a new offence after a three-year follow-up, in contrast to about one in ten board-ordered parolees.</p>
<p>The reality is that the often minimal level of supervision may increase the amount of scrutiny without providing much of the kind of support that offenders might require for successful re-entry.</p>
<p>The increasingly constricted level of funding and resources devoted to community corrections might also contribute to this result. Funding restrictions limit the nature and extent of supervision that parole officers with growing caseloads can provide. They also reduce the availability of post-prison programs.</p>
<p>Certainly changes in the “back-end” release policies – such as court-ordered parole – may have contributed to a revolving-door situation in which offenders frequently return to prisons. It is possible that the less frequent use of suspended sentences contributed because parolees are more closely monitored, increasing the detection of breaches. However, researchers <a href="http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Documents/bb97.pdf">Menéndez and Weatherburn</a> have found, to the contrary, that suspended sentences may actually lead to a rise in the imprisonment rate. </p>
<p>Whatever the reason, the issue is to find some way to deal with the rising trend, and especially with the high levels of offender breaches.</p>
<h2>Community reparation and rehabilitation work best</h2>
<p>Recent evidence demonstrates the importance of focusing on re-entry and reparation in two important ways. </p>
<p>First, research has demonstrated the importance of sanctions that combine punishment with programs that help re-establish the offender in the community. These emphasise punishment in the community rather than removal from society – and include a range of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/some-sex-offences-are-best-dealt-with-out-of-the-courts-20130122-2d57l.html">reparative sanctions</a> and rehabilitative <a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/70216/1/70216.pdf">community sanctions</a>. </p>
<p>Second, helping offenders find and keep work has been shown to promote offender change. This contributes to successful re-entry to society. Investing in prison training and programs as well as prisoner re-entry programs reduces the risk of re-offending.</p>
<p>In Queensland, where QCS has provided vocational and educational training programs, evidence indicates very positive results. <a href="http://apo.org.au/research/vocational-education-and-training-provision-and-recidivism-queensland-correctional">Rates of re-offending</a> have fallen for prisoners who enrol in these programs.</p>
<p>Our research shows that completion of in-prison vocational and educational training <a href="http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_seminar_series/2015-Conference-slides.aspx">lowers the risk of re-imprisonment</a>. In a forthcoming publication, we show that these work programs are important starting points for offenders to change their patterns of behaviour, forging new non-offending identities.</p>
<p>These types of programs will make a difference in helping offenders reintegrate by tackling the risk factors for offending.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment series</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38989/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robin Fitzgerald receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Institute of Criminology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Cherney receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Institute of Criminology.</span></em></p>Queensland’s rates of imprisonment had been falling, but have undergone a sharp reversal - much of it driven by the nation’s highest rates of return by prisoners released into the community.Robin Fitzgerald, Lecturer in Criminology, The University of QueenslandAdrian Cherney, Senior Lecturer, Criminology Head of Discipline, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389062015-04-14T01:20:58Z2015-04-14T01:20:58ZState of imprisonment: South Australia’s prisoner numbers soar, with just 10% of budget for rehab<p><em>This article is part of The Conversation’s series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment</a>, which provides snapshots of imprisonment trends in each state and territory. The intention is to provide a basis for informed public discussion of imprisonment policies and of the costs and consequences for Australia of rising rates of incarceration.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>South Australia’s prison system is composed of nine facilities (including one privately run prison). On June 30, 2014, the <a href="http://www.corrections.sa.gov.au/reports-and-media/annual-reports">prison population was 2501</a> – at or very near the highest in modern memory. </p>
<p>From July 2013 to the end of June 2014, the average daily number of sentenced prisoners was 1569, with another 826 on remand. During this period, the approved design capacity of all facilities was 2448 prisoners, with an average daily prison population of 2396. The City Watch House was used to deal with “overflow” when needed.</p>
<p>The prison estate was therefore running at 98% capacity during that year and continues in a similar vein. This is despite the completion and ongoing addition of new beds (and repartitioning of current space) at several facilities.</p>
<p>However, understanding the key issues facing the prison system requires a larger overview of prisoner numbers and rates of incarceration – specifically, how these have increased over time. Such increases have exacerbated long-standing problems, worsening Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration rates in particular, and created new dilemmas, such as over-crowding. </p>
<p>Rising prisoner numbers have put additional pressure on opportunities for successful re-integration into the general community upon release from custody.</p>
<p>The interplay between two distinct but inextricably connected environments – the “prison community”, as <a href="http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/3/442.full.pdf+html">Donald Clemmer</a> called it, and the ex-prisoner community attempting, in the words of <a href="http://pun.sagepub.com/content/13/1/3">Shadd Maruna</a>, to turn themselves “back into citizens” – is central to understanding how and why “the prison problem” keeps growing.</p>
<h2>Trends in incarceration and prisoner numbers</h2>
<p>Many might accept that Australia’s general population will grow from one year to the next and that it is only natural that the prison population will grow as well. </p>
<p>But the key question hinges on the extent to which the number of people in prison has remained steady or decreased in relation to overall population growth, or, as has been the case for some years now, outstripped such growth.</p>
<p>When prison numbers grow faster than the rest of the population – as it has – it means we are putting more people in prison (irrespective, say, of improvements in policing or changes in sentencing guidelines) than might “reasonably” be expected. </p>
<p>Over the last decade, the growth in prisoner numbers (<a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4517.0">averaging 3.45% per annum</a>) has been slightly
more than double the rate of Australia’s net population growth (<a href="http://abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/3101.0Main%20Features2Jun%202014?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3101.0&issue=Jun%202014&num=&view=">about 1.7% per annum</a>). South Australia has fared far worse. The prison population has on average increased by around 7% per annum since 2004, whereas growth in the general population for the state was just over 1% per annum.</p>
<p>Put differently, since 2004 the growth in prisoner numbers in South Australia was seven times that of net population growth. In that time, the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ESouth%20Australia%7E10018">prison population</a> grew by 68%. Only <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EVictoria%7E10016">Victoria</a> (69%) and the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ENorthern%20Territory%7E10021">Northern Territory</a> (108%) experienced greater proportionate increases.</p>
<p>This had not always been so. In the decades leading up to the mid-2000s, South Australia could reasonably claim the label of a “mid-range” incarcerating state. From 2001 to 2006, the crude rate of incarceration – a rate that does not disaggregate the total age distribution for various groups – was about <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1C9585084E9D4326CA25795F000DB3C0?opendocument">124 prisoners per 100,000</a> relevant population. By 2014 that rate had risen to <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EPrisoner%20characteristics,%20states%20and%20territories%7E10000">188 prisoners per 100,000</a> – in effect tipping South Australia toward the higher end of the incarceration ledger.</p>
<p>It is also essential to drill down into what is happening with different “cohorts” of prisoners and to take specific account of <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4517.0Glossary12014">age-standardised rates</a>. This is important given the sharp disparities between the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 18 and above (around 55%) as against non-Indigenous Australians in that category (75%).</p>
<p>In terms of non-Indigenous people, South Australia has an age-standardised
incarceration rate of <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ESouth%20Australia%7E10018">165 per 100,000</a> relevant population. Only the Northern Territory (at 167) exceeds this. </p>
<p>South Australia now also has the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ESex%7E10002">third-highest rate</a> (after Northern Territory and Western Australia) of male imprisonment in the nation, with 357 males per 100,000 relevant population (aged 18 and above) imprisoned. </p>
<p>The female incarceration rate – although starting from a much lower base – has increased by 60% over the last decade, from 15 to 24 persons per 100,000.</p>
<h2>Imprisonment increase hits Indigenous people hardest</h2>
<p>The story is similar for the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EImprisonment%20rates%7E10009">incarceration rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people</a>. In 2004, South Australia was positioned below New South Wales, Western Australia and Northern Territory in terms of Indigenous imprisonment rates. It now sits well ahead of New South Wales. </p>
<p>But the really important statistic is that, in just 10 years, South Australia nearly doubled the rate at which it locks up Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In 2004, the Indigenous incarceration rate was 1092 per 100,000 relevant population. By 2014, it had soared to 2016 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults in prison for every 100,000 such persons in the state.</p>
<p>Nearly one in four people in South Australia’s prisons are from an Indigenous background. Adjusting for age, such people are imprisoned at <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ESouth%20Australia%7E10018">12 times the rate</a> of non-Indigenous Australians.</p>
<p>As with the Northern Territory and Western Australia, South Australia has one of the highest rates of imprisonment for a particular proportion of its population anywhere in the world. Using combined Australian Bureau of Statistics data, about one in 17 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men in South Australia aged 20 to 49 are, on any day, in prison. Among Indigenous men in South Australia aged 20 to 39, roughly one in 14 are locked up. </p>
<p>Reflective at least in part of the generally turbulent conditions to which ex-prisoners return once released, of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody at the end of June 2014, two-thirds reported being imprisoned previously. Less than half (44%) of non-Indigenous South Australian prisoners reported that was the case. </p>
<p>Again, at June 30, 2014, for one in five (18%) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners, the most serious charge leading to their incarceration was “offences against justice procedures, government security, and operations”. In the overwhelming majority of cases this equated to breach of a community-based order (bail, parole conditions and like). A further one in four (23%) Indigenous prisoners were incarcerated for “acts intended to cause injury”. </p>
<p>These two “most serious offence” categories presently account for 40% of South Australia’s Indigenous prison population. By contrast, these offences apply to just 25% of non-Indigenous prisoners. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77318/original/image-20150408-18083-knxl5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77318/original/image-20150408-18083-knxl5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77318/original/image-20150408-18083-knxl5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77318/original/image-20150408-18083-knxl5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77318/original/image-20150408-18083-knxl5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77318/original/image-20150408-18083-knxl5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1220&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77318/original/image-20150408-18083-knxl5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77318/original/image-20150408-18083-knxl5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1220&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Running Yatala Prison, the state’s largest, and other prisons consumes 75% of the corrections budget, with rehabilitation getting only 10%.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Halsey</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Time to consider all the costs</h2>
<p>The surge in numbers raises important questions regarding who is going to prison and why, as well as at what social and economic cost. It costs around <a href="http://www.corrections.sa.gov.au/reports-and-media/annual-reports">A$180 million a year</a> to operate South Australia’s prisons. That accounts for 75% of the total correctional budget. Rehabilitation takes up just 10%.</p>
<p>Like elsewhere in Australia, the costs of imprisonment in South Australia will continue to rise: the state is scheduled to <a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/john-rau-flags-review-of-sa-sentencing-system-to-keep-low-risk-offenders-out-of-jail/story-fni6uo1m-1227291275004">spend around A$170 million</a> in coming years to increase the prison estate by around 380 beds.</p>
<p>But the direct dollar cost (paying correctional staff, construction of new prison beds) is really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the probable longer-term consequences of being jailed on people’s lives, such as in their parenting, employment, education and health.</p>
<p>Certainly, prisons are here to stay. But effective alternatives to incarceration, which balance public safety and meaningful opportunities for desisting from crime with pathways to reintegration, need to be a central part of the policy debate too. </p>
<p>There is some evidence that such a conversation is starting to emerge. But if the aim is to reduce prisoner numbers, then it will be important to think about which “type” of offenders are incarcerated and for how long. </p>
<p>It might also be necessary to examine the recurring geographies associated with much crime and imprisonment: that is, the degree to which particular areas or “postcodes” disproportionately “feed” into various parts of the criminal justice system, including prison. Arguably, that requires thinking about the drivers of social inclusion and exclusion in these and other locales.</p>
<p>This would mean investing for the long term – irrespective of election cycles – in upstream initiatives known to prevent crime and social disadvantage. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Halsey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and serves on the South Australian Justice Reinvestment Working Group.</span></em></p>Since 2004, the number of prisoners in South Australia has risen seven times faster than the state’s net population growth – and nearly doubled its rate of locking up Indigenous Australians.Mark Halsey, Professor, Flinders Law School, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389052015-04-12T20:32:18Z2015-04-12T20:32:18ZState of imprisonment: Victoria is leading the nation backwards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77180/original/image-20150407-26496-q46s17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In recent times, Victoria has reverted to the punitive approach that once filled the Old Melbourne Gaol, with little thought for the long-term consequences.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/easternblot/3725387711/">Flickr/Eva</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of The Conversation’s series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">State of Imprisonment</a>, which provides snapshots of imprisonment trends in each state and territory. The intention is to provide a basis for informed public discussion of imprisonment policies and of the costs and consequences for Australia of rising rates of incarceration.</em></p>
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<p>Victoria was once <a href="https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/getattachment/280f4a06-5927-4221-bf64-d884ba6abaf9//publications/discussion-papers/discussion-paper-investigation-into-the-rehabilita.aspx">the most progressive state</a> when it came to imprisonment. The state was characterised by low imprisonment rates and innovative corrections policy. Victoria now leads the nation with the highest rate of growth in imprisonment.</p>
<p>The Victorian imprisonment rate <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-prison-numbers-surged-under-napthine-20141211-1258jw.html">increased by 40.5%</a> between 2009 and 2014. The next highest growth, in South Australia, was 26%.</p>
<p>The impact on the state budget is huge. The <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/publications/victorias-prison-population-2002-2012">real recurrent cost</a> of prisons (in 2011-12 dollars) for every resident of Victoria has grown from A$56.47 per year in 2003/4 to A$83.95 in 2013/14. Taking into account inflation and population growth, this is a 49% increase.</p>
<p>Having more people in prison ultimately has <a href="http://www.smartjustice.org.au/cb_pages/files/SMART_MorePrisons%20Final%20Revised%202014.pdf">negative impacts on community safety</a>. The long-term <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/05_2012/op10.pdf">intergenerational impacts</a> are devastating. </p>
<p>In 2014, Victoria’s prisons <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EVictoria%7E10016">held 6,112 people</a> compared to 3,624 in 2004. This rapid growth is anticipated to continue, with the prison population <a href="https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/getattachment/280f4a06-5927-4221-bf64-d884ba6abaf9//publications/discussion-papers/discussion-paper-investigation-into-the-rehabilita.aspx">projected to reach 7,169</a> by June 2015.</p>
<h2>Capacity and costs are expanding</h2>
<p>The new Labor government’s minister for police and corrections, Wade Noonan, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-prison-numbers-surged-under-napthine-20141211-1258jw.html">has recognised</a> that this growth has resulted in a system “under enormous pressure”. </p>
<p>The response to this pressure under the previous Napthine government was to invest in prison capacity.</p>
<p>In the 2013-14 financial year, <a href="https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/getattachment/280f4a06-5927-4221-bf64-d884ba6abaf9//publications/discussion-papers/discussion-paper-investigation-into-the-rehabilita.aspx">938 new prison beds</a> were opened. All existing prisons have expansion plans. In September 2014, the previous government signed a A$670 million contract for construction of a private medium-security men’s prison contracted for 1000 beds, but with a capacity of up to 1300. It is <a href="http://archive.premier.vic.gov.au/2014/media-centre/media-releases/10974-coalition-government-signs-contract-for-new-ravenhall-prison.html">expected to be in operation</a> by 2017. </p>
<p>This is a system that is expanding exponentially, with profound consequences for the community. What are the reasons for this increase?</p>
<h2>What is driving up imprisonment rates?</h2>
<p>The rapid growth in the imprisonment rate is not directly correlated with increased crime rates. The most recent Victoria Police <a href="http://www.police.vic.gov.au/content.asp?a=internetBridgingPage&Media_ID=72176">crime statistics</a> show that the 2013/2014 crime rate was 1.6% lower than 10 years ago. Hence, it isn’t crime but other policy and practice changes that are driving imprisonment trends.</p>
<p>The four critical changes have been:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Sentencing: imprisonment <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/publications/victorias-prison-population-2002-2012">terms have increased</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Parole: changes to parole from September 2013 resulted in many <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/publications/victorias-prison-population-2002-2012">parole applications being rejected</a> and therefore longer terms of imprisonment. Plus <a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/imprisonmentobservatory/comparative-peneology/current-projects/">evidence is emerging</a> that increasingly stringent parole conditions and/or more severe punishments for breach of parole are resulting in many prisoners electing to serve their full sentence in prison instead of applying for parole.</p></li>
<li><p>Bail: the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/bill/bab2013131/">Bail Amendment Act</a> 2013 brought about significant changes, including more rigorous oversight of charged persons and the introduction of offences for contravening bail conditions or committing an indictable offence while on bail, each punishable by up to three months imprisonment, creating the potential for further charges and longer sentences. </p></li>
<li><p>Suspended sentences: Victoria <a href="http://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/about-sentencing/sentencing-options-for-adults/suspended-sentence">fully abolished</a> the suspended sentence – a term of imprisonment that is fully or partially suspended for a specified period – in September 2014. The legal fraternity <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/abolition-of-suspended-sentencing-will-jail-the-wrong-people-20140814-103waz.html">has criticised</a> the abolition of this sentencing option as a “mistake” that will lead to “a more sustained increase in the prison population … in the crime rate [and possibly] … the rate of recidivism”. </p></li>
</ol>
<h2>Who feels the impacts?</h2>
<p>Imprisonment affects the whole community. It is expensive and <a href="http://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/publication-documents/Does%20Imprisonment%20Deter%20A%20Review%20of%20the%20Evidence.pdf">fails to increase community safety</a> in the long run. The broader impacts are wide-reaching and long-term.</p>
<p>However, the data reveals that some key groups have been affected more significantly by the upward trend in imprisonment in Victoria. We highlight two. </p>
<p><strong>Indigenous Australians</strong></p>
<p>The rate of imprisonment for Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander (ATSI) people in Victoria is 12.6 times higher than non-ATSI people. While ATSI Australians make up <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/vic-45?opendocument&navpos=620">0.7% of Victoria’s total population</a>, they represent <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EAboriginal%20&%20Torres%20Strait%20Islander%20prisoner%20characteristics%7E10007">7.7% of the prison population</a>.</p>
<p>That proportion is not as high a level of over-representation as in other parts of Australia: for example, in New South Wales, Indigenous Australians comprise <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ENew%20South%20Wales%7E10015">24% of the total prisoner population</a>, and <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ENorthern%20Territory%7E10021">in the Northern Territory it is 86%</a>. However, it still reflects a disproportionate impact of prison expansion on Victoria’s Indigenous population. Indigenous imprisonment must be connected to the broader <a href="http://www.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/Closing_the_Gap_2015_Report_0.pdf">context of Indigenous disadvantage</a> across health, employment and education.</p>
<p><strong>Women</strong> </p>
<p>The imprisonment of women in Victoria has also grown disproportionally in the last decade, at a <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ESex%7E10002">rate of 41%</a>. A quarter of the women’s prison population in Victoria is un-sentenced, meaning they are on remand.</p>
<p>Women prisoners have been found to be 1.7 times <a href="http://whv.org.au/static/files/assets/ed8eaf9a/Women_and_corrections_GIA.pdf">more likely to have a mental illness</a> than male prisoners. Non-Aboriginal women are significantly more likely than non-Aboriginal men to have attempted suicide.</p>
<p>It is well known that women are disproportionately <a href="https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/getattachment/280f4a06-5927-4221-bf64-d884ba6abaf9/">affected by post-release homelessness</a> and that the majority have dependent children. Imprisonment exacerbates <a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/imprisonmentobservatory/files/2014/09/Cairnlea-Evaluation-Report_2010.pdf">multiple challenges</a> – including mental health instability, inaccessible secure long-term accommodation and a limited likelihood of post-release employment – that significantly affect women and their children. Those problems often disrupt family reunions and the return of children to their mother’s custody. The result is that imprisonment can have devastating long-term impacts on women’s lives and the lives of their family members. </p>
<h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>
<p>Two important things have happened in Victoria. </p>
<p>The first is the change of government that occurred in November 2014. Labor, under Premier Daniel Andrews and Corrections Minister Noonan, has committed to investing in <a href="http://www.smartjustice.org.au/resources/SMART_Prevention.pdf">custodial and post-release prisoner support programs</a>. But <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/jury-out-on-labor-prison-plan-20150123-12w1rn.html">concerns remain</a> about what, if any, concrete policies will be put in place to arrest the state’s fast-rising rate of imprisonment. </p>
<p>The second is the Victorian <a href="https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/News/Media-Releases/Media-Alerts/inv-into-provision-of-rehab-programs-for-offenders">Ombudsman’s investigation</a> “into the provision of rehabilitation programs and transitional services for offenders in Victoria”. Following the call for submissions (<a href="https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/News/Media-Releases/Media-Alerts/Media-Release-Strong-response-to-prisons-discussio">29 were received</a>) and a report is due to be published in late 2015. </p>
<p>These are positive signs. What remains critical is to ensure Victorians are onside with innovation and meaningful reform at the policy and program level. These must be targeted to specific areas and informed by research in order to reduce imprisonment numbers, whilst improving our overall safety and well-being as a population.</p>
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<p><em>On Wednesday May 13, Monash Criminology is hosting a free public event, Beyond Imprisonment: innovation and reform opportunities for Victoria, which will build on issues raised in this article. Hosted by Maxine McKew, the forum will involve leading innovators in the area discussing what is possible for reform in Victoria. For more details and to register <a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/criminology/beyond-imprisonment/">click here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie Segrave receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is a founder of the Imprisonment Observatory.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Eriksson receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is a founder of the Imprisonment Observatory.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Russell has been involved in the Centre for the Human Rights of Imprisoned People (CHRIP) project at Flat Out as a volunteer and in community organising with the Abolition Collective in Melbourne.</span></em></p>Victoria was once characterised by low imprisonment rates and innovative corrections policy. The state now has Australia’s highest rate of growth in imprisonment.Marie Segrave, Senior Lecturer, Criminology, Monash UniversityAnna Eriksson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Monash UniversityEmma Russell, PhD candidate in Criminology, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/388422015-04-09T20:41:47Z2015-04-09T20:41:47ZPrisons policy is turning Australia into the second nation of captives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77150/original/image-20150407-26488-68yopa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The human and financial costs to Australia of following America's lead in imprisoning more and more people are huge.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-86779999/stock-photo-hands-of-the-prisoner-on-a-steel-lattice-close-up.html?src=RNMiVmX339I7FrAy75Xp6g-1-3">Shutterstock/BortN66</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sometimes you don’t need hindsight to identify broken social and legal policy. Such is the case with Australia’s slide into following the US lead and becoming a nation of captives. A little known, but alarming, fact is that imprisonment numbers in Australia – both the number of offenders incarcerated and the growth in numbers – are now at <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMedia%20Release%7EAustralian%20prisoner%20numbers%20climb%20to%20ten%20year%20high%20(Media%20Release)%7E10023">record highs</a>, and by a considerable margin.</p>
<p>Incarceration rates have fluctuated considerably since federation. At the turn of the 20th century, the imprisonment rate per 100,000 (adult) population was relatively high: <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4524A092E30E4486CA2569DE00256331">126 persons per 100,000</a> adults. This dropped to <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4524A092E30E4486CA2569DE00256331">52 per 100,000</a> by 1925. Following a period of moderate fluctuation, in the last two decades the prison population has <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4524A092E30E4486CA2569DE00256331">more than doubled</a>: an unprecedented occurrence in Australian history.</p>
<p>The number of prisoners <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2013%7EMain%20Features%7EPrisoner%20characteristics,%20Australia%7E4">broke through the 30,000 mark</a> for the first time on June 30 2013, at which point the rate of imprisonment was 170 prisoners per 100,000 adults. The current imprisonment rate is <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EPrisoner%20characteristics,%20Australia%7E4">186 per 100,000 people</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast to most <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate">other developed countries</a>, this rate is palpably high. The rate <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada-s-prison-population-at-all-time-high-1.2440039">in Canada</a> is 118 per 100,000. The incarceration rate in Australia is nearly <a href="http://www.prisonstudies.org/world-prison-brief">three times higher</a> than in Scandinavian countries.</p>
<p>Standing apart from these trends is the world’s greatest incarcerator, the United States, which imprisons more than 700 people per 100,000 - an increase of more than 400% in three decades.</p>
<p>While the Australian incarceration rate is low compared to the US rate, we are highly inefficient at locking up prisoners. It costs every state and territory <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/02/02/how-much-does-it-cost-keep-people-australian-jails">at least A$80,000</a> to house each prisoner for a year, compared to <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/03/18/2013-06139/annual-determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration">around A$30,000</a> in the US. Hence per capita our spending on prisons is significant in relative and absolute terms.</p>
<p>And it is to the US where we should now be looking to ascertain the fall-out from an unabated tough (and dumb) on crime policy. The extensive use of imprisonment in the US has finally <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/11/7/panel-mass-incarceration-race/">reached a tipping point</a>. The community can no longer readily absorb the cost of a <a href="http://www.usfca.edu/law/docs/criminalsentencing">US$60 billion annual prisons budget</a>.</p>
<p>Radical <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/13/wonkbook-11-facts-about-americas-prison-population/">measures are being implemented</a> to reduce prison numbers. The most recent is effectively opening the prison gates to release thousands of sentenced offenders. </p>
<p>In April 2014, the US Sentencing Commission <a href="http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/news/press-releases-and-news-advisories/press-releases/20140410_Press_Release.pdf">voted to reduce</a> the sentencing guideline level for most federal offences of drug trafficking. These changes will apply retroactively, meaning that more than 46,000 prisoners are eligible to have their cases reviewed for a penalty reduction. On average, penalties are likely to be reduced by two years and one month, resulting in savings of approximately 80,000 prison bed years.</p>
<h2>Imprisonment isn’t working</h2>
<p>Increasing prison numbers might be tolerable if this achieved a positive community outcome. However, the <a href="http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18613">evidence is to the contrary</a> (the author analyses the Australian data in a forthcoming article for the Australian Bar Review, entitled “Jail Up, Crime Down Does Not Justify Australia Becoming an Incarceration Nation”). It does not reduce the rate of serious crime, discourage potential offenders or reduce re-offending rates.</p>
<p>In many cases, imprisonment is just the wanton infliction of gratuitous punishment by an unthinking legislature and a reflexive judiciary.</p>
<p>Sentencing is the area of law where there remains the biggest gap between what <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/06/prison-contagious">science tells us</a> can be achieved through a social institution (criminal punishment) and what we actually do. We will continue to have a runaway incarceration rate until governments and courts start making evidenced-based policy and sentencing determinations. This would mean imprisonment is essentially reserved for the offenders we have reason to fear or who have inflicted serious suffering on others, not those that we simply dislike.</p>
<p>It is repugnant that <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7ESentenced%20prisoners%7E8">more than 40%</a> of prisoners in Australian prisons are serving sentences for non-violent or non-sexual offences. White-collar criminals, drug traffickers and social security cheats irritate us and inconvenience our lives, but they should only go the jail in the rarest of circumstances. The <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8390.html">pains of imprisonment</a> are normally a disproportionate response to their crimes.</p>
<h2>Time to reverse the trend to excessive punishment</h2>
<p>There is also a powerful normative basis for limiting prison numbers. Imprisoning offenders for a moment longer than is necessary to achieve a demonstrated (attainable) objective of sentencing constitutes a violation of one of the most universally held moral norms: the prohibition against punishing the innocent. The violation of this norm is so prevalent in Australia that it is in fact in our prisons where the greatest number of <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/letstalkaboutrights/downloads/HRA_prisioners.pdf">human rights infractions occur</a>.</p>
<p>And this is one problem that is not the total fault of populist politicians. Our courts have considerably contributed to the crisis by unilaterally increasing sentencing tariffs for drug and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/white-collar-crims-going-to-jail-for-longer-20130719-2q8rx.html">white-collar offenders</a> over the past decade. This is supposedly in order to deter other offenders.</p>
<p>The strategy has been a brilliant failure. To appreciate the extent of this debacle you don’t need to look out of your window to see that illicit drugs are increasingly available on every street corner. You merely need to ask criminologists, who are overwhelmingly convinced about the <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/publication-documents/Does%20Imprisonment%20Deter%20A%20Review%20of%20the%20Evidence.pdf">failure of general deterrence theory</a>.</p>
<p>Australian governments need to develop a strategy to reduce incarceration numbers to about 100 per 100,000 (consistent with historical trends). Without a systematic overview, the unprecedented increase in incarceration levels has the potential to contribute to a fiscal crisis and an <a href="http://www.law.monash.edu.au/castancentre/policywork/hr-reports/2014/prisons.html">ongoing human rights tragedy</a>, devoid of a principled solution – as we are witnessing in the United States.</p>
<p>The start and endpoint to the solution is to confine jails (almost exclusively) to those we have reason to be scared of: sexual and violent offenders.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Next week The Conversation begins a series, State of Imprisonment, on the trends and policies in every state and territory. The series aims to promote an informed discussion about the costs and consequences of rising rates of imprisonment across most of the nation. You can read articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/state-of-imprisonment">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article draws on a longer article by the author and Athula Pathinayake to be published in the next edition of the Australian Bar Review.</span></em></p>The US is the great incarcerator, spending US$60 billion a year on prisons, and Australia is sliding down the same path. The solution? Confine jails almost exclusively to sexual and violent offenders.Mirko Bagaric, Dean and Head of School of Law, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.