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This article argues that the high cost of prisons and youth detention fails to reduce reoffending, urging policymakers to prioritize community support over incarceration as a more fiscally responsible and effective crime response.
In these cash-strapped times, I’m often asked how governments can save money. One area Australian leaders have so far largely failed to consider is our prisons – the money we spend to build and staff them for the vast numbers of people who enter those gates and usually end up making at least one return visit.on locking up children.
The cost of keeping one adult in prison for a year is almost $120,000. Spending on youth detention has more than doubled over the past decade and now Yet despite these massive outlays , the evidence overwhelmingly shows that jailing is failing. Imprisonment makes further offending From a fiscal perspective, it’s almost nonsensical.
Policymakers around the world and from all sides of politics have recognised this. In the US, 21 states partially or fully closed at least one correctional facility between 2000 and 2022,that the 37 per cent of people incarcerated for non-violent offences should not be dealt with by a prison sentence. When governments chase votes by being seen to be “tough on crime”, the economic arguments against overreliance on prisons often fall by the wayside.
This may change with the launch of a new coalition ,, which believes that the economic case against prisons as our default policy response to crime and disadvantage should be given much more weight. , growing more than three times faster than the population itself. The surge is largely driven by much higher numbers of people who are on remand waiting for court, including many who have been charged with minor offences.
This surge does not reflect higher crime rates, but rather the policy and legislative settings which are driving more people into prison and making it much harder for people to access bail. As a result, our prisons have become even more overcrowded and cost more to staff and maintain. Access to education and services within prisons to help prevent reincarceration remains limited, as does post-release support. We are setting people up to fail again, with community safety also at risk.
Recidivism rates in Australia are far higher than most comparable countries, withat risk of criminalisation in NSW found that 7 per cent of individuals under the age of 25 will account for half the estimated cost of the state’s social services by the time they are 40 years old. Additionally, 1 per cent of this group will be responsible for 32 per cent of NSW’s total justice service costs, highlighting that early intervention targeting a small but critical group can reduce future costs significantly.
While there are long-term savings to be had, a change of tack would require governments to make large upfront investments into prevention and early support and intervention initiatives. The long-term savings can then be invested into new or continued prevention and early intervention initiatives. ” and highlighting alternative approaches to prison that could achieve better outcomes at lower costs, such as diversion programs, restorative justice and home detention.
But the missing part of this equation to date has been the political courage to say that locking people up isn’t always the smartest approach. Getting politicians to do what makes economic or moral sense is often challenging amid rising populism and media cycles driven by clickbait algorithms. Continuing to throw billions at a system that drives further offending is poor policy and fiscal negligence.
At a time when governments are stretched and debt is growing, a reassessment of our costly overreliance on prisons and the relative lack of investment in evidence-based alternatives to incarceration would prove valuable. We will see far greater returns from investing upfront where the dividend is highest: keeping people out of prison in the first place. Saul Eslake is an independent economist and an inaugural member of Economists for Justice Reform, established by the Justice Reform Initiative.
Prison Reform Youth Detention Criminal Justice Policy Government Spending Recidivism
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