12/30/2023 0 Comments Imate costVictoria’s recent budget included $1.8 billion of investment in new prison capacity. The Queensland Productivity Commission estimates that in Queensland alone, $5.2 to $6.5 billion in new investment will be required for prison capacity to meet demand in 2025. If current trends continue, significant new investment will be required. It also outstrips expenditure growth in other parts of the justice system including police and courts. This eclipses other rates of government spending growth over the period, including on General Practitioners (3.7 per cent) and early childhood education (5.1 per cent). In the five years to 2017-18, the operating cost of prisons increased in real terms at an annual rate of 6.7 per cent. Unsurprisingly, increasing rates of imprisonment are driving significant increases in the operating cost of prisons. But the economic costs are increasingly obvious, eating up taxpayer dollars, hitting state budgets and impacting the productive potential of our economy.Īccording to the Productivity Commission, the annual cost of prisons in Australia reached over $4.6 billion in 2017-18, equating to $302 per prisoner per day. The human costs of increasing imprisonment are devastating but often hidden from public sight. Without a greater focus on rehabilitation, the cost to society, both economic and social, will continue to grow unchecked. For example, in Queensland the median prison sentence is less than four months and 65 per cent are for non-violent offences.īut most concerning of all is that at least half of all prisoners in 2017-18 had been imprisoned as adults previously. Prisons are also increasingly occupied by lower level offenders. This now places Australia around a fifth higher than the OECD average for rates of imprisonment.Įven more concerning is that the most rapid growth in prisoner numbers is for Indigenous people and women. The flip side is that we are placing increasing numbers of people into a system that is not working to rehabilitate individuals and break the cycle of offending.Ĭompared to a decade ago, Australia is putting 51 more people into prisons for every 100,000 of our adult population, reaching 221 for every 100,000 last year. For example, a recent report from the Australian Institute of Criminology puts the homicide rate at its lowest level in 25 years.ĭespite this, a ‘tough on crime’ mantra has prevailed across state governments and CEDA’s 2018 nation-wide poll, Community Pulse, highlighted that Australians place importance on tough criminal laws and sentences. The public’s focus on crime statistics is often personal - what do crime rates suggest about personal safety in my city or local neighbourhood? In many instances, there is an overwhelmingly positive story to tell about recent trends in crime.
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