Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

‘Law and order’ policy
and others will follow or attempt to introduce policies that are even tougher on
crime. This is a form of ‘policy transfer’, which will be discussed later.
In concert with the growth in these and other criminal laws and sanctions has
been the growing use of punishment, especially imprisonment. The daily average
imprisonment rate in Australia in 2018 was 222 prisoners per 100,000 population. 15
In 1976, before law and order policy began to take hold in Australia, there were
just 77.8 prisoners per 100,000 population. 16 On average, there were 42,878 people
in prisons in Australia during the April–June quarter of 2018 – up from 30,835 in
2013 and 26,640 in 2008. 17
This growth has been driven, at least in part, by the rising remand population
(i.e. those held in custody while awaiting resolution of their court matters) and the
imposition of longer prison sentences by courts. To provide some context, in the
June 2018 quarter, 13,182 people were held in prison awaiting finalisation of their
matters in court. This is more than double the 6,482 prisoners on remand a decade
earlier. 18 Of particular concern, around half of all people on remand are released
withouthavingtoservefurthertimeinprisonbecausetheyareeitherfoundnot
guilty, given a community order or deemed to have served their time while on
remand. 19
The increased remand population is at least partially explained by changes to
bail laws. Historically, there was a uniform presumption in favour of bail for those
whohadbeenchargedwithanoffencebutnotyetconvicted–thus,unlessthere
weregoodreasonstorefusebail,itwouldbegranted.Overtime,baillawshave
undergone numerous waves of reform, gradually removing the presumption in
favour of bail for more and more offence categories. It varies between jurisdictions,
but at present there is a presumption against bail for a number of offence categories,
including:
• terrorism
• violence
• sex
• domestic violence
• drug
• bushfire
• blackmail
• organised crime
• driving.
15 ABS 2018b.
16 Mukherjee 1981, 98.
17 ABS 2018b.
18 ABS 2018b.
19 New South Wales Law Reform Commission 2012.
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