Prisoners - Legal Information Access Centre - NSW Government

The Prison
Population
there were 27615 prisoners in australian prisons
on 30 June 2008, which is an imprisonment rate
of 169 prisoners per 100 000 adult population.
this does not include people held in police
stations. (the National Police Custody Survey
2002 revealed that in the month of october 2002
there were 27 047 instances of police custody
throughout australia. 6 )
The imprisonment numbers exclude those held in
juvenile detention centres, immigration detention,
psychiatric hospitals, military detention centres, and
other places of involuntary detention. Also excluded
are people serving community corrections orders across
Australia – a daily average of 52 658 in 2006-07, which
is a rate of 329.4 per 100 000 adults. 7
Note: Imprisonment rates expressed per 100 000
adult population are a more sophisticated measure
than the rate per 100 000 total population which is used
elsewhere, including in the international comparisons
set out on p 9.
Prisoners are held in 118 custodial facilities around
Australia, of which seven (holding 17% of the total
prison population) are privately run. More than threequarters
of Australia’s prisoners are held in secure
facilities (76.2%) with 23.8% in open prisons. 8 New
South Wales and the ACT also provide for periodic
detention of prisoners – for example, weekend detention
in custody, allowing prisoners to return home and
continue work commitments during the week.
It is important to note that unlike other federations such
as the US or Canada, in Australia the administration
of and responsibility for prisons has rested with state
and territory governments. There is no federal prison
system and prisoners convicted and sentenced under
Commonwealth legislation are housed in state and
territory run prisons.
cOsTs
In 2006-07 Australian prisons cost $2.3 billion to
run, an average cost per prisoner per day of $245. 9 The
equivalent figure for people in community corrections
is $0.3 billion. So, nearly eight times as much is spent
on prisons as is spent on community corrections, which
handle nearly twice the number of people at any one
time.
In NSW, the Department of Corrective Services reported
in 2001 that the average cost per offender per day on a
community based program delivered by the Probation
and Parole Service was $8.63 compared with $138.93
per day for a minimum security inmate in full time
custody. 10
cOmmuniTy cOrrecTiOns
Community corrections are non-custodial programs
which vary in the extent and nature of supervision, the
conditions of the order, and the restrictions on a person’s
freedom of movement in the community. They generally
provide either a non-custodial sentencing alternative or
a post-custodial mechanism for reintegrating prisoners
into the community under continued supervision. 11
Community corrections in NSW include:
> home detention orders;
> Drug Court orders;
> community service orders;
> probation;
> parole.
The NSW Department of Corrective Services has
responsibility for offenders in the community through
its Community Offender Services.
6. N Taylor and M Bareja, 2002 National Police Custody Survey (2005) AIC Technical and Background paper No 13, p 19.
7. Report on Government Services 2008 at 8.7.
8. As above at 8.4.
9. Report on Government Services 2008 at 8.3 and 8.21.
10. NSW Legislative Council, Select Committee on the Increase in Prisoner Population, Final Report, November 2001, p 107;
available at www.parliament.nsw.gov.au click on ‘Committees’ and from the left under ‘Reports/Gov Responses’ select ‘All (1999+)’, then in
the drop-down menu select ‘Increase in prisoner population’ and click on ‘go’.
11. Information taken from Crime facts info No. 100: Community corrections in Australia, Australian Institute of Criminology, 2005.
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