More than half the people in prison will re-offend and return, creating a huge cost burden on the Public Purse. But governments driven by law and order politics are unwilling to invest in reducing recidivism and in NSW a respected service that’s worked with prisoners on release for 50 years is being dropped. Ann Arnold of Background Briefing investigates.

John* doesn’t recall what happened between 7.30pm and dawn. He only remembers the start of another long night of drinking in Redfern.

‘Yeah it was December so the sun goes down about seven-ish and the last thing I remember was standing on the guy’s balcony, not the victim’s balcony, but the guy whose place it was, admiring the view around sundown. That’s the last thing I remember.'

‘And apparently the incident occurred at about 2.30am or thereabouts the next morning.’

He learned that his friend, a ‘rough, tough customer’ and a father of a 13-year-old girl, was dead.

‘Because of me. And I’ve gotta cart that around for the rest of my born days.’

John served four-and-half years in jail for manslaughter. When he was up for release, he had nowhere to go. His parole conditions forbade him to live in the Redfern area, and he knew a boarding house would be dangerous.

‘It’d be so challenging for my mental health. I got bipolar affective disorder, besides which, I don’t think I could handle living in a rooming house anymore. I’m too old for that crap. I’m too old for everybody else’s problem right outside my door, in my face, all the time. Because they’re broken people. I love ‘em man, but they’re broken people too.’

Instead, John got lucky. He was among the few prisoners in NSW—around 264 per year—who have been helped by CRC, the Community Restorative Centre, with up to two years of accommodation and other support. No other organisation in NSW offers that.

But now John’s luck is running out. He is losing his caseworker and may have to leave his small flat. CRC is about to lose its funding, because the Department of Corrective Services has changed its post-release programs to focus on short-term services of three months.

CRC will tender, but even if successful, would only receive one quarter of its current funding. So it is having to let staff go, from inner Sydney, Parramatta, Newcastle and Broken Hill. And it is ‘exiting’ distressed clients.    

John has been sober for two years, but it’s a constant struggle. If CRC cannot find him permanent accommodation before leaving him, he does not know where he will end up. ‘That would threaten my sobriety and my sanity, which would make everything just crumble to the floor, you know. I’d just go through the floor and be back where I was.’

John was categorised by the Department of Corrective Services as medium-high risk of re-offending. Most people in jail have been there before. The re-conviction rate within two years in NSW is 74 per cent for non-Aboriginal people, and 86 per cent for Aboriginal people.**

It’s one of the reasons imprisonment rates are rocketing. In both NSW and Victoria, the jail populations have never been so big. And that’s expensive. The average national daily cost of a prisoner is $290.

In NSW, it’s approximately $250. By contrast, the work of Community Restorative Centre ("CRC") was costing an estimated $70 per day. Governments continue to spend much more on locking people up than on the cheaper options that prevent people returning to jail.

Lou Schetzer, from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, says: ‘It's dumb public policy. It's dumb economics. It's costing the taxpayer an enormous amount for these people to be continually re-offending and re-incarcerated. And we really need to look at a better way of investing the public dollar that encourages that reintegration into society so that people who are released from prison can make that valuable contribution to society.’

The Department of Corrective Services says that under the new system, it will be spending twice as much as it is currently on transition programs. But there are concerns about the efficacy of the new three month programs, whether the pay rates can attract the degree of skilled staff needed for complex clients, and about case loads.

This article represents part of a larger Background Briefing investigation. Listen to Ann Arnold's full report on Sunday at 8.05 am or use the podcast links above after broadcast.

Professor Eileen Baldry from the University of NSW, researches prison populations. Up to half of prisoners have a mental health disorder, and a significant minority—up to 15 per cent—have a cognitive impairment. Professor Baldry has found that there’s significant overlap of those and other issues.

‘Post-release,’ she says, ‘you really need skilled workers, you need a range of connections to the range of service provisions that that person will need, and you need time.’

‘This is not something which is going to be addressed in three months or six months. It’s something that’s going to take a long time.’

There’s a dearth of research in Australia on what works in post-release programs. However, Professor Baldry says overseas research makes clear what model is necessary.

‘[What] we know works is, some people call it “wrap around”, some people call it holistic, some people call it a “fully supported housing project”. That’s the kind of program that is most useful. Because what it does, it addresses either sequentially or at the same time, a lot of those issues.’

‘Work, particularly in the United Kingdom, some in Canada and a bit in the United States, shows very clearly that the recidivism rates from those kinds of programs are very low.’

Don Weatherburn, the director of the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, says governments should be focussing on recidivism above all else.

‘Well it's hugely important,’ he says. ‘We tend to preoccupy ourselves with creating alternatives to prison, forgetting that most people going to prison this year, or last year, are actually going back to prison.’

There’s more leverage, he says, in reducing the prison population by reducing the rate of return to prison, rather than reducing the number of people who go there in the first instance.

Tackling recidivism is not politically popular, however. The last NSW politician who tried was the recently dumped Attorney-General, Greg Smith.

His former media advisor, legal journalist Michael Pelly, says Mr Smith’s interest in keeping people out of jail, where possible, was popular for a while—including with the new Premier, Mike Baird, who was then the treasurer. Prison numbers came down, and jails were closed.

‘The treasurer thought this was tremendous,’ says Mr Pelly. ‘Less money: $70,000 a year for an adult, $250,000 a year for a juvenile.’

‘That adds up to a lot of hospital beds you can provide. And a lot of deficit and infrastructure you can build. And that was all going very well until the pressure went on, and the whole notion that anybody would be seen as soft on crime.’

According to Mr Pelly, the pressure came largely from one source: 2GB’s Ray Hadley.

‘Ray has very solid links to the police and has a very particular view about law and order policy, and his voice is extremely influential.’

‘Each parliamentary office up at Parliament has a radio selection. And I can assure you that from 9 o clock to 12 o'clock, I'd say 80 per cent of parliamentarians had Ray Hadley on the radio and had Ray Hadley telling them for a good four months that Greg Smith is soft on crime, was a raving lunatic, that Barry [O’Farrell] should sack him.’

Gradually, Mr Smith lost the support of his colleagues. Mr Pelly says he was frustrated that amid the noise of the law and order rhetoric, the fact that the Attorney-General was aiming for a safer community was lost.

‘This is the whole folly of the exercise. That it doesn't allow for a nuanced approach.’

‘Don't forget we were a penal colony, founded on the idea that people could get a fresh start. Macquarie emancipated the convicts, made them productive members of society.’