Prison reform saves millions for taxpayers

29/5/02
A dramatic fall in the prison population as more minor offenders are sentenced to community work is saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year, Attorney General Jim McGinty said today.
"Instead of a forecast prison population of over 3,800 within the next four years, we are now looking at less than 3,000," Mr McGinty said.
"The turnaround has slashed $109million off the projected cost of running our prisons over the six years to 2005-06."
Mr McGinty told a Parliamentary Estimates Committee hearing that taxpayers were reaping the benefits of the Government's plan to abolish sentences of six months or less - even before the legislation had been formally introduced.
"In the past year, we have seen a significant shift in court sentencing, coinciding with the public debate and extensive support for diverting minor offenders to community work rather than prison," he said.
"The number of people sentenced to community work has risen nine per cent in that time, corresponding with a 10 per cent reduction in the prison population."
In total, the prison population is down around 330 people from 3,121 prisoners a year ago to less than 2,800 this week.
"It's a remarkable turnaround," Mr McGinty said.
"We need to be tough on serious offenders - there is no question they should be locked up as both a punishment and to protect the community.
"But locking up minor offenders achieves nothing. It costs a fortune to have them sit around in prison, when they could be out doing useful community work as real reparation for their offences."
Mr McGinty said the Department of Justice was instructed last year to beef up the community work system, and this also had given the judiciary greater confidence that community work was not a soft option.
More than 100 new community work projects had started since October to meet the extra demand, and applications from a further 50 community groups wanting to be involved were now being assessed.
It costs about $174 a day to keep a person in prison, compared with $12 a day to have him/her do community work.
Mr McGinty said WA had one of the highest imprisonment rates in the western world.
"In WA, we have been locking up 220 people per 100,000 population," he said.
"That's higher than any Australian State - more than double that of some - and well above the national average of 144 per 100,000.
"It's also higher than England, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Norway and Japan. Only the USA has a higher imprisonment rate.
"I don't believe our citizens are more criminal than elsewhere. Our justice system is clearly out of step with reality."
Mr McGinty said sending minor offenders to prison had the added problem of exposing them to more hard-core prisoners, which increased the likelihood of their becoming entrenched in a criminal lifestyle.
He said community work provided a significant loss of liberty, but without this inherent problem or the same onerous cost burden on the community.
Attorney General's office: 9220 5000