The COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to think critically about the place of prisons in society and how and why prisoners have been released in the past. COVID-19 could spark systemic change.
Sentencing policy is a mixed bag of approaches: punishment, deterrence, protection and rehabilitation. The system will remain costly and ineffective until punitive instincts give way to a more rational approach.
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.
Academic Director/ Clinical Ethicist, Children’s Bioethics Centre at the Royal Children’s Hospital, and Associate Professor in Health Ethics at the Centre for Health and Society, The University of Melbourne