Justice reinvestment – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

May 2, 2023

‘Too much money is spent on jails and policing’: what Aboriginal communities told us about funding justice reinvestment to keep people out of prison

Fiona Allison, University of Technology Sydney; Daniel Daylight, Indigenous Knowledge, and Thomas Duncan, Indigenous Knowledge

What does ‘justice reinvestment’ mean in practice? Who makes funding decisions? To find out more, we consulted Aboriginal communities in Bourke, Moree and Mount Druitt.

December 6, 2022

‘A life changing experience’: how adult literacy programs can keep First Nations people out of the criminal justice system

Jack Beetson, University of New England; Melanie Schwartz, UNSW Sydney, and Pat Anderson, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

After participation in the Literacy for Life Foundation adult literacy campaign, serious offences by students dropped by almost 65%.

Instead of expanding its only prison, the ACT government will redirect $14.5 million into a range of justice reinvestment programs. Lukas Coch/AAP

February 21, 2019

Australian governments should follow the ACT’s lead in building communities, not prisons

Lorana Bartels, University of Canberra

For years, the benefits of justice reinvestment programs have been championed. Now the ACT is actually investing in it, and the federal government should do the same.

Indigenous young people are 25 times more likely to be detained than non-Indigenous young people. AAP/Jesse Roberts

June 15, 2015

‘Tough on crime’ is creating a lost generation of Indigenous youth

Amanda Porter, University of Technology Sydney

A new generation of Indigenous youth is being separated from their families and culture – this time by the force of criminal law that ignores the proven alternative of community-based justice.

The ACT’s new prison did not take long to fill up, which has tested the capacity of corrections authorities to live up to their stated high ideals. AAP/Lukas Coch

April 17, 2015

State of imprisonment: can ACT achieve a ‘human rights’ prison?

Lorana Bartels, University of Canberra

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.

A Welcome to Country ceremony opens Darwin’s new $500 million facility last month to house rising numbers of prisoners, 85% of whom are Indigenous, a grossly overrepresented group. AAP/Neda Vanovac

October 19, 2014

Justice reinvestment saves huge costs of law-and-order auctions

Sarah Hopkins, UNSW Sydney

A number of reports, most recently Victorian and NSW crime statistics, show crime rates are falling. But as election time looms in these states, their governments’ focus on tough law-and-order policies…

Silverwater prison in NSW. Australia should be spending more to prevent people going to jail than on housing them in facilities like this. AAP/Paul Miller

May 2, 2013

Prevention not prison: justice reinvestment makes dollars and sense

Peter Norden, RMIT University

Australia spends billions of dollars every year on our prison system yet the number of those being sent to jail keeps increasing. Is this sustainable? Simple logic would suggest not, unless we want to…

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