jalbru
06-18-2004, 01:14 AM
Prison numbers rocket
The Sunday Mail, 21 March 2004
QUEENSLAND'S prison population has more than doubled over a decade.
And figures show the system is failing to rehabilitate inmates, with two-thirds of prisoners re-offending.
Social justice campaigner Noel Preston said the re-offending rates indicated the state's jails were just "warehousing" prisoners.
A lack of worthwhile programs and graduated release led to a growing sense of powerlessness and anger among inmates "which is a very dangerous situation", he said.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics report Prisoners in Australia shows the country's jail population increased by nearly 50 per cent between 1993 and 2003. In Queensland, the number soared 153 per cent from 2068 to 5243.
The Sunshine State had the third highest rate of incarceration behind the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
The proportion of female prisoners here rose from 4 per cent to 7 per cent.
Queensland stood out with its jailing of young people.
There were 27 under-18s in adult prisons in the state, compared to five across the rest of Australia.
Critics say the "lock-'em-up" approach is failing. Some 65 per cent of Queensland prisoners have been jailed before.
Only the Northern Territory has a worse recidivism rate.
Debbie Kilroy, from the female prisoners' advocacy group Sisters Inside, said Queensland's rocketing prison population was the result of law and order political campaigning.
"Look who the prisons are full of - they are the poor, the black, the disadvantaged, the mentally ill and the homeless," she said.
Prisons made people more brutal and once their sentence was complete, they were dumped on to the street with little more than a garbage bag of belonging and expected to put their lives in order, Ms Kilroy said.
Dr Preston, director of Uniting Care's Centre for Social Justice, said the ABS figures were "tragic and appalling statistics which reflect badly on the record of Queensland governments".
Queensland Council for Civil Liberties spokesman Terry O'Gorman said "mindless knee-jerk" policy changes by politicians were driving up the prison population.
Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence attributed the increase in prisoner numbers to "an increase in the reporting of crime and strengthened enforcement activity by police". :angry: a typical response.
The Sunday Mail, 21 March 2004
QUEENSLAND'S prison population has more than doubled over a decade.
And figures show the system is failing to rehabilitate inmates, with two-thirds of prisoners re-offending.
Social justice campaigner Noel Preston said the re-offending rates indicated the state's jails were just "warehousing" prisoners.
A lack of worthwhile programs and graduated release led to a growing sense of powerlessness and anger among inmates "which is a very dangerous situation", he said.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics report Prisoners in Australia shows the country's jail population increased by nearly 50 per cent between 1993 and 2003. In Queensland, the number soared 153 per cent from 2068 to 5243.
The Sunshine State had the third highest rate of incarceration behind the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
The proportion of female prisoners here rose from 4 per cent to 7 per cent.
Queensland stood out with its jailing of young people.
There were 27 under-18s in adult prisons in the state, compared to five across the rest of Australia.
Critics say the "lock-'em-up" approach is failing. Some 65 per cent of Queensland prisoners have been jailed before.
Only the Northern Territory has a worse recidivism rate.
Debbie Kilroy, from the female prisoners' advocacy group Sisters Inside, said Queensland's rocketing prison population was the result of law and order political campaigning.
"Look who the prisons are full of - they are the poor, the black, the disadvantaged, the mentally ill and the homeless," she said.
Prisons made people more brutal and once their sentence was complete, they were dumped on to the street with little more than a garbage bag of belonging and expected to put their lives in order, Ms Kilroy said.
Dr Preston, director of Uniting Care's Centre for Social Justice, said the ABS figures were "tragic and appalling statistics which reflect badly on the record of Queensland governments".
Queensland Council for Civil Liberties spokesman Terry O'Gorman said "mindless knee-jerk" policy changes by politicians were driving up the prison population.
Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence attributed the increase in prisoner numbers to "an increase in the reporting of crime and strengthened enforcement activity by police". :angry: a typical response.