Australia’s prison system will cost $7bn a year by 2030 due to higher incarceration rates, with the number of women jailed growing faster than men, a report suggests.
A Committee for Economic Development of Australia (Ceda) study on the economic and social costs of keeping women behind bars, released on Friday, states that bail reform and other measures are needed to reduce prison populations.
The report argues that despite serious crime rates falling, incarceration rates are increasing, particularly for women including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
In the past decade, the number of women in prison has grown by more than 60%, considerably faster than the 45% growth for men.
Across Australia, governments are spending $5.4bn a year on corrective services, or $330 per prisoner per day. The Ceda report suggests if 50% of women sentenced to imprisonment were diverted governments could save $405m in 2030.
The report says the number of women jailed could be reduced by eliminating short sentences for minor offences in favour of community-based sentences. The number of people on remand could be cut by increasing bail release rates and providing better support for those on bail.
Ceda wants targets set to reduce imprisonment and reoffending rates. The should be pursued through a coordinated approach by the council of attorneys general, Friday’s report states.
It suggests more funding is needed for “justice reinvestment” programs that redirect resources from prisons to preventive programs – and for programs to help prisoners reintegrate into society with help for housing, work and health.
In a speech on Monday the assistant minister for the Treasury, Andrew Leigh, noted the typical taxpayer was forking out $140 more a year for prisons than would be needed if Australia maintained its 1985 rates of incarceration.
Labor’s national platform states that incarceration “fails to reduce recidivism, provide effective outcomes for victims of crime or to make our communities safe”. It promises a federal Labor government would work with states and territories to pursue “evidence-based criminal justice policies … which rely less on high cost and harmful prisons”.
But in practice both major parties at the state level have made a virtue of tougher sentencing.
The Ceda chief executive, Melinda Cilento, said that women “pose a low risk to the community”.
“Many are often sentenced to less than the time they spend in remand,” she said. “Many are unsentenced – more than 50% of women in custody in Victoria are unsentenced.”
The rising rates of women in prison reflected “that over-policing of minor offences, and tougher bail and sentencing laws, are having a disproportionate effect on women”, she said.
“Every night a woman spends behind bars for a crime for which she was not convicted, or for which she was sentenced to less than time served, is clearly a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
In October’s federal budget the Albanese government announced a $99m package for First Nations justice, including $81.5m for justice reinvestment projects.
Attorneys general in all jurisdictions are currently developing a proposal to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility.
