As highlighted in a number of reports, most recently the NSW crime statistics from BOSCAR – crime is falling but the focus on tough law and order policies is swelling the prison population beyond its capacity. A lot of people will shrug their shoulders and honestly wonder what the fuss is about. People who commit crimes go to prison and this makes the community safer. What they fail to consider is the very real downside: a bigger drain on the public purse and a bad social outcome. Make no mistake, the rate of growth in prison numbers in NSW and Victoria, as well Queensland and other states are going to cost all of us a lot of money. When leaders declare themselves ‘infrastructure premiers’ I don’t think they or anyone else thought they meant as prison builders. But at $300 million for each new prison there is a need for Australia to build at least one prison somewhere each year to cope with the growth. In the world of capital investment, choices are made and whenever we spend taxpayer dollars on a prison we forego investment in another area. In California, and many other states in the USA, this has […]
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