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Corrective Services across Australia

Corrective services operated 118 custodial facilities nationally at 30 June 2018, comprising -

*    92 government‑operated prisons,

*    10 privately‑operated prisons,

*    four transitional centres, and

*    twelve 24‑hour court cell complexes (holding prisoners under the responsibility of corrective services in NSW) (table 8A.3).

On average, 41 867 people per day were held in Australian prisons during 2017‑18 (table 8A.4), of which 80.0 per cent were held in secure facilities. A daily average of 7851 prisoners (18.8 per cent of the prisoner population), were held in privately operated facilities during the year (table 8A.4). Nationally, females represented 8.3 per cent of the daily average prison population, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners represented 27.8 per cent of the daily average population.

In 2017-18, the national imprisonment rate was 216.8 per 100 000 people in the relevant adult population (figure 8.1). This represents an increase of 29.9 per cent since 2008‑09 (table 8A.5). The rate for males (404.3 per 100 000 males) was over 11 times the rate for females (35.2 per 100 000 females) (table 8A.5).   

The national crude imprisonment rate per 100 000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population was 2465.9 in 2017‑18 compared with a rate of 158.8 for the non‑Indigenous population (table 8A.5). Comparisons of imprisonment rates should be made with care, especially for states and territories with relatively small Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Small changes in prisoner numbers can cause variations in rates that do not accurately represent either real trends over time or consistent differences from other jurisdictions.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population has a younger age profile compared with the non‑Indigenous population, which contributes to higher crude imprisonment rates. After adjusting for differences in population age structures, the national age standardised imprisonment rate per 100 000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in 2017‑18 was 1948.5, compared with a corresponding rate of 168.0 for the non‑Indigenous population (figure 8.2). Therefore, after taking into account the effect of differences in the age profiles between the two populations, the national imprisonment rate for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population is almost 12 times greater than for the non‑Indigenous population. Rates that do not take age profile differences into account are 16 times greater.