You want to be safe in your community? Then it is time to stop funding the problem and start funding solutions.

Last week the Victorian Government’s announcement of $727 million being invested into prison beds came as a blow to advocates for justice reinvestment in our community. It is a clear indication of Government bowing down to political pressures and misinformed fear across the community and moving further away from evidence based decision making.

Instead of simply complaining about this decision, I feel this is an opportunity to inform our community as to why this news sent waves of grief across those working in community.

Since around 2010, Victoria has had a tough-on-crime policy approach, a political response driven by media and public fear around rising crime rates. The policy reforms underpinning this approach relate to stricter bail laws and expanded prison capacity.

Over these 15 years, we have seen significant expenditure in the justice system.

Alarmingly - around $15 billion in total on building more jails, expanding policing and supervision costs in the community.

Given the most recent budget announcement of more investment in prisons, you would think that the evidence shows that this investment is worth it…that the crime rates are reducing and safety in our community is increasing. Evidence is surely what Government uses to inform their decision making.

Unsurprisingly, it isn’t working and there is clear evidence showing this.

Over the past 15 years we have seen a 20% increase in crime rates in Victoria.

These are not all new offenders.

It is estimated that around 40% of people sent to prison re-offend.

In my practice experience, the ones that don’t are either low level offenders that probably shouldn’t have been in prison in the first place, or those who have a tremendous amount of support (professional and personal) when they are released.

The prison system does not rehabilitate. It may come as a surprise, however, there is a significant absence of therapeutic programs prisoners can access. For those who sit on remand (sometimes for years), there is even more limited support.

Another harsh reality- many people are released from prison with little or no support.

A young woman who was serving a short sentence in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (women’s prison) recalled the first time she was released. She was pointed in the direction of the bus stop out the front. She had very little belongings and the only place she could return to was her abusive partner. She didn’t even know which direction the bus was taking her when she hopped on.

This is the reality.

For over twenty years, I have had first-hand insight into our justice and prison systems.  

I could write a book about the people I have walked beside in their journey through the system. However, it's not my story to tell. What I will tell though is the repeated failures in our system, the tough on crime approach that absolutely has not made our community safer.

Paula*, an 18-year-old Aboriginal young woman who had been in out-of-home care since she was 10 due to serious sexual and physical abuse in the home. She had an intellectual disability and had not engaged in mainstream secondary school at all. She experienced repeated trauma throughout her life, was sex working at 14 and using drugs simply to block out her reality. She had repeated contact with the justice system for minor offending throughout her adolescence and at 18 was remanded in the women’s jail. I will never forget going to visit Paula in jail. She was in a blue suit with locks at the wrists, ankles and neck. She was deemed a problematic prisoner and recounted experiences of being wet celled- locked in a room and sprayed with water as a way to make her comply.

Do you think that made her less of a risk to our community when she was released six months later?

Lucas* an 18 year old young man who was facing charges of aggravated burglary and involvement in a high speed police pursuit. From a privileged family and private school educated, yet was witness to significant family violence for most of his life. Received a custodial sentence and then returned to the same environment were he had endured trauma is whole life.

Do you think that a stint in jail was worse than what he experienced for his whole life and what he was returned to?

I could continue however these two examples are enough to make anyone consider whether these approaches would actually causes these individuals to think twice about offending, or in fact make them angrier at the world and in turn, more of a risk.

A majority of the people I have supported over my career are not ‘bad’. Whilst I recognise that there is a very small minority that no amount of support or integration into our community would change their offending, for the majority- connection, meaningful engagement, stable housing, and specialist support in the community is what has led them to ceasing offending.

Unfortunately, as more money is invested in punitive approaches, less money is directed into crime prevention, early intervention or reintegration programs.

I ask my trusty AI assistant to create a visual representation of expenditure on crime prevention (green line) compared to crime rates (blue line) in Victoria.

Unsurprisingly, the graph it produced demonstrated that investment in crime prevention correlates with a decline in crime rates.

Why does the Government continue to cut crime prevention responses, yet invest in prison beds when the data and evidence are so clear?

I have been fortunate to see so many examples of programs that successfully address an individual’s risk of offending. These are ones that address social determinants of health and an individual’s criminogenic needs, and then develop responses based on risk, needs, and responsibility (the solid evidence base for addressing offending behaviour). To see the evidence on the various approaches check our Caraniches’ Information Sheets Criminogenic Theories - Forensic Fundamentals.

Advocates with lived experience, practice experience, and evidence seem to be falling on deaf ears.

My experience in advocating for policy change at a systems level has taught me one thing, in order for Government to make meaningful and impactful policy change that is driven by evidence, we need our community to understand the evidence and complexity of issues that are often simplified by the media. We need our community to hold Government to accountable to make budget and policy decisions based on evidence, as opposed to decisions based on bandaid responses that are knee jerk responses to complex social issues.

Continuing down the path of investing more money in our police and justice systems is not going to create safer communities. What it will do is redirect funding from preventative approaches, healthcare, housing and education, where change can really be made.

Every single person in our community should be concerned- not just because we want to be safe in our community- but because it is our taxes that pay for a system that is not actually working.

That to me is basic common sense…no one would continue paying for a service or product that doesn’t work in our home. Why are we staying silent when we are continuing to accept this in our community?