Prisons don’t create safer communities, so why is Australia spending billions on building them?
- Written by Emma Russell, ARC DECRA Associate Professor in Crime, Justice and Legal Studies, La Trobe University
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show prisoner numbers are growing in every Australian state and territory — except Victoria.
Nationally, our per capita imprisonment rate outpaces Canada, the United Kingdom and all of Western Europe. Annual operating and capital costs for the nation’s prisons have surpassed A$6 billion...