Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
• the rise of ‘supermax’ prisons means that some prisoners are being confined for
long periods with little or no contact with other prisoners or the outside world
• sex offender registers mean that those convicted of particular sex offences will
have their movements monitored for lengthy periods following their release
from prison.
Taken together, the rise and intensification of these practices means that more
people are entering the criminal justice system, staying in it for longer and
returning more frequently, instigating a vicious cycle of offending.
Financial costs
The criminal justice system operates at great economic expense. The Australian
Productivity Commission 5 calculated expenditure on the criminal justice system in
2016–17 as follows:
• $10.9 billion on policing (not including federal police)
• $1.4 billion on courts
• $4.1 billion on corrective services (prisons and community corrections)
• $769.5 million on youth justice services (detention-based supervision,
community-based supervision, group conferencing).
To put some of the above figures in context, it costs approximately $391 per day
to keep an adult in prison, whereas community-based supervision only costs
approximately $18 per day. 6 The costs of detaining juveniles are exponentially
higher than adults; the cost of detaining one young person averages $1,482 per day
and the cost of community-based supervision averages $140 per day. 7
In Western Australia (WA), more than 1,000 people each year are imprisoned
for unpaid fines, with an average imprisonment period of four days. 8 In addition to
the cost of $345–$770 per day to detain them in prison, such short imprisonment
periods have negligible, if not negative, impacts on rehabilitation or deterring
future fine defaults. 9 Expenditure that does not serve an outcome is bad economics
– and imprisonment for unpaid fines appears to fall under this category.
Given these significant costs, it is important that law and order policy uses
public funds in the most efficient and effective manner. Every dollar spent on
inefficient law and order policy represents one less dollar spent on education, public
infrastructure, welfare and so on.
5 Productivity Commission 2018.
6 Morgan 2018.
7 Productivity Commission 2018.
8 Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia 2016.
9 Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia 2016.
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