Rehabilitative needs and treatment of Indigenous offenders in ...

Prior Imprisonment HistoryImprisonment history is a predictor of future re-offending and is strongly linkedwith sentencing decisions. Research has demonstrated that offenders withprior imprisonment episodes have an increased chance of receiving acustodial sentence rather than a community-based penalty (Fitzgerald 2009).Figure 4.3 shows the number of prior imprisonment episodes for offenders incustody at June 2008 by Indigenous status. Indigenous offenders (84%) aremore likely than non-Indigenous offenders (69%) to have been previouslyimprisoned. Indigenous offenders are also much more likely to have beenpreviously imprisoned six or more times (28%) compared with non-Indigenousoffenders (12%). Twenty-eight per cent of Indigenous offenders comparedwith 40 per cent of non-Indigenous offenders have previously been in custodyeither once or twice before. Twenty-eight per cent of Indigenous offenderscompared with 23 per cent of non-Indigenous offenders have beenincarcerated three to five times before their current term of imprisonment.Figure 4.3: Number of Prior Imprisonment Episodes by Indigenous Status as at30 June 200840.035.033.9Percentage Within Indigenous Status30.025.020.015.010.015.631.128.028.023.028.412.05.00.00 1 to 2 3 to 5 6+Number of Prior Imprisonment EpisodesSource: QCS, IOMSIndigenousNon-IndigenousSentence LengthIndigenous offenders are more likely to have shorter sentences than non-Indigenous offenders. Figure 4.4 shows the sentence profile of offenders incustody in June 2008. Eighteen per cent of Indigenous offenders have asentence of 12 months or less and 26 per cent have a sentence length of oneto three years – 13 per cent and 21 per cent respectively for non-Indigenousoffenders. A greater share of non-Indigenous offenders (7%) have a lifesentence compared with Indigenous offenders (4%). This finding is consistentwith information provided in the previous section which showed that non-29