A new report has shown that Australia’s imprisonment rate has increased by nearly 50 percent since 2000 and is above all Western European countries and Canada, yet instead of reducing crime, it has only led to higher rates of reoffending.
Australia now imprisons more people than at any time since 1900, costing taxpayers over $3.6 billion ($US 2.4 billion) annually or $110,000 per prisoner per year.
Released on March 1 by the Justice Reform Initiative, an alliance of former parliamentarians, Aboriginal leaders, judicial figures and experts, the report found the increase in prisoners was “driven by systemic failings and policy and legislative choices that end up funnelling people … unnecessarily into imprisonment.”…