A group focused on addressing the alarming number of people in Australian jails has called for more supporters.
Justice Reform Initiative chairman Robert Tickner and executive director Mindy Sotiri say they want to change the conversation about who is jailed and why.
In Australia, there are about 40,000 people behind bars, the highest rate in a century.
And Mr Tickner, a former Labor MP, told ABC Radio Brisbane the country had among the highest incarceration rates in the world.
"Jailing is failing in so many respects, something like 70 per cent of people in prison have been there before," he said.
"We need to educate the community, and remind our politicians, who know this very well, that imprisoning a growing number of people is costing Queenslanders $1 billion a year."
He said a University of New South Wales study showed if "intensive support" in the areas of finding work, mental health and housing was given to people leaving prison, the repeat offender rate dropped by 65 per cent.
"We need to start putting the resources, a substantive investment, into keeping people out of jail," Mr Tickner said.
"Keeping young people in juvenile detention costs $500,000 a year. If we invested 10 per cent of that in the people likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system [like] kids who are going through family trauma [that will help].
Dr Sotiri, an academic and justice system policy and service delivery reform specialist, said JRI was not advocating for softer punishments.
She said it was important to improve community safety and prisons were a key way of doing that.
"In reality in Australia, most people who go to prison come out, but our recidivism rates are very high," Dr Sotiri said.
"They're on remand or awaiting sentencing.
"Right across Australia people end up in prison because they're homeless, or there is a lack of faith they'll turn up for their court date.
"They're being managed in criminal justice settings instead of in the community."
Research showed more than 50 per cent of people in jail had mental health issues and that people with brain injuries were over-represented in the justice system.
Mr Tickner said 70 per cent of people who were sent to prison did not have a job.
"And, they certainly come out no more job-ready than when they went in," he said.
Expanding horizons
Ron Wilson has taught in maximum security prison settings since the 1970s and agreed that more had to be done to help prisoners live a meaningful life once their sentences finished.
Based in Victoria, the prison education expert said a trend toward giving prisoners trade or other skills which could translate into work outside did not deal with the reasons many were finding themselves incarcerated.
Dr Wilson's recently published book, Joseph Akeroyd: Rediscovering a Prison Reformer, charts the journey of Akeroyd from school headmaster to inspector general of the Victorian prison system in the mid to late 1800s.
Akeroyd's background in education was instrumental in steering the Victorian penal system toward helping "school people up on what they will need once they get outside".
Dr Wilson said education was vital to opening prisoners' eyes to the potential they had in society and how they could contribute.
"Right across Australia, jails are preparing people for jobs, it's very vocational and there's nothing wrong with that," he said.
"But there are a range of different complications. There are people whose sentence means there are a lot of occupations that are not available to them; and, a lot of jobs they're training for just aren't attractive to them.
"There are so many people in there who won't be a ripple in the community [when they get out]. There are many who are not all really bad."
