Australia’s prison system isn’t working. It needs urgent attention - Jane Fynes-Clinton
CRIMINAL justice is costing us a motza, but we don’t feel safer.
Nationally, we have less crime but jail more people; we have more police but greater security fears and more products of our corrections centres are returning to prison than staying straight.
The need for recalibrating the criminal justice system has never been greater. By almost every measure, Australia’s corrections systems are failing to serve the purpose they were designed for: to correct, rehabilitate and deter others.
A report released this week by independent public policy think tank the Institute of Public Affairs shows Australia is indeed an island where our penal system is concerned.
Australia’s Criminal Justice Costs: An International Comparison found Australia was outstripping almost every OECD nation on spending per prisoner, we are jailing more people and employing more police — but we still feel unsafe.
The system is surely bent, if not broken.
Prisons are booming mini-cities. Since 2009, Australian prisoner numbers grew at a faster rate than in all but five OECD nations.
Similar common law countries such as the US and our Commonwealth siblings have stemmed the flow of the mad, the sad and the bad through prison doors — even reversing the trend — but our jailbird population has proliferated.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that by March, the population in Australian prisons had reached 40,577, up 10 per cent on the year before.
A third of those held were awaiting trial. Men accounted for 92 per cent of them.
We should not feel proud. This should not be a reason to feel we are winning because people jailed does not mean crime solved, miscreant reformed or wrong righted.
When prisoners are released, Australians have not worked out how to feel comfortable with them living among us.
Queensland’s Independent Investigation into the Towing Industry report released this week highlighted the problem of our discomfort, detailing an inconsistency in the requirements to reveal convictions and which offences needed to be taken into account among employees.
But if a prisoner has served their time, they must be able to work and contribute. They have that right and we have the need for that to be able to occur.
This week’s report found Australian prisons are among the most expensive in the world, and the spending was not just on bars and barbed wire: on average it costs taxpayers about $110,000 a year to keep a prisoner in an Australian jail.
We also have the highest number of police per capita of any common law nation and while we have a high level of confidence in police, we also have a disproportionate level of concern about crime.
Studies including those by the Australian Institute of Criminology have repeatedly shown a disconnect between our perception of the prey valence and severity of crime and reality.
We perceive the crime rate is growing when most categories of crime are stable or reducing.
We demand more people be jailed when all the evidence shows that taking their freedom and warehousing them increases their chance of further offending.
The problem is, our perception drives our demand and influences political decision making. We have more laws that lead to jailing an offender than ever before and more police enforcing more laws, but still we feel unsafe.
Reducing reoffending is an obvious way to stem prisons spending as well as having the community benefits that go with reducing crime.
And because unemployment is linked intrinsically to law-breaking, greater effort must be made to skill up our prisoners and improve their literacy and numeracy standards in preparation for their release.
Of course, the public does not have an appetite for that: bread and water are too good for prisoners, many in the public contend.
But looking squarely at the bitter reality of our crime statistics, considering alternatives to jail for more offences, spending on correcting instead of warehousing and trusting that our police are keeping us safe are big steps towards a fairer, safer and more just community.
Comments
Ross
Agree wholeheartedly. This is what it will take if we want a
system that actually works and deters crime.
My wife and I spend a
lot of time in China. We feel safe to walk the streets alone at
any time of day or night. Because in China, if a person forfeits
their rights by committing serious crime, they are removed from
society. They don't get the chance to re-offend. I have seen
lots of drunk Chinese on Saturday nights having a good time and
enjoying their freedom. I have never seen it turn violent or
nasty, because they know that while they are free to enjoy,
there is a line that is not to be crossed. Of course, China
don't care about the rights of 1% of the population, but the
rights of the 99% to go about their law abiding lives without
fearing detriment. In Australia, it is ALL about the rights of
minorities, and STUFF the rights of the majority.
Too many people in jail??? Are you joking??? The fact that offenders have to share a cell with someone possibly much more violent than them is the whole point of jail being a deterrent. Take away all their niceties as well. No prisoner should be able to watch foxtel when so many hard working people and aged pensioners can't afford to.
If my tax dollars are going to be spent on dole bludging criminals, I would rather it be spent on keeping them in jail. Put them to work chain-gang style doing public service roles to earn their keep, and if any try to escape or over-run their guards, shoot them.
I work hard to earn the money needed to have not just nice things but necessities like shelter and food. When some dole bludging criminal breaks into my home to steal things that don't belong to them, I want that individual to dealt with. Dealt with harshly enough so that they wish they never set foot in my home and will never do it again.