This paper draws on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Productivity Commission,
and a range of studies conducted into the effectiveness of community corrections. It finds that:
- Community corrections is growing rapidly. The national community corrections population has
grown by 18.6 percent in the last two years, and 30.2 percent since 2007. (Figure 1, Table 2) - The community corrections rate rose from 329 per 100,00 adults in September 2007 to 361
per 100,000 adults in September 2017. (Figure 3) - The fastest growth has been seen in the use of parole orders post-incarceration, suggesting
that community corrections is operating in combination with incarceration and not always as a
replacement for prison time. (Table 2) - Over the past ten years, the proportion of the community corrections population whose most
serious offence was an act intended to cause injury has risen. In 2016-17, more than 42,000
offenders whose most serious offence was a violent offence were given a principal sentence in
community corrections. (Figures 4 and 5) - Across the country, courts are increasingly using community corrections as the principal
punishment for violent offenders. This growth, however, has mostly come from community
corrections replacing monetary orders. (Figure 6) - In 2016-17, nationwide spending on community corrections was $589 million. This was less
than $22 per offender per day, about 10 percent of the cost of prison. (Section 4-1) - There is emerging evidence that community corrections is more effective than prison in
reducing reoffending, even where all relevant aspects of the different populations are
controlled for. (Section 4-2) - Completion rates vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction with no clear correlation to per offender
spending or the ratio of staff numbers to offender numbers. (Figures 11 and 12) - Nationally, offenders only served about half the community service hours to which they were
sentenced, indicating an under-supply of community service work opportunities. (Table 4)
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