Australia
With some exceptions, Australian governments have responded to overcrowding by building more prisons.
Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, and Victoria have all embarked on prison building or expansion programs.
In NSW, along with the reopening of the 75-bed Berrima facility, the government has announced a $3.8bn program of new prisons and expansions, designed to add almost 3,000 beds to the system’s capacity.
In many states, the rush for new prisons has benefited private operators, including the multinational Serco, which will help build and run Australia’s biggest correctional facility in Grafton, NSW.
For Eileen Baldry, a leading criminologist and University of New South Wales deputy vice-chancellor, it’s a hard-headed approach, one that sucks up billions of dollars that could otherwise go towards addressing the root causes of criminality through early intervention, diversion, prevention or rehabilitation programs.
That represented a 133% leap in prisoner numbers since the June quarter of 1997, meaning the national jail population grew at more than four times the rate of the overall population over the last two decades.
Surging prison numbers were one result of populist “tough on crime” lawmaking by state governments, including mandatory sentencing and tougher hurdles for bail, Hamburger said.