In this interview, Mia Schlicht appeared on Perth Live 6PR to discuss the IPA’s research on the cost of prisons.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Oliver Peterson:
But some new research has just been published by the Institute of Public Affairs, and it’s indicating that WA prisons are set to reach capacity by July 2029. Now that is less than four years away. And they’re calling on reform because the cost of incarceration is set to surge. Mia Schlicht is a Research Fellow at the IPA. Mia, good afternoon.
Mia Schlicht:
Good afternoon, Ollie. Thanks for having me.
Oliver Peterson:
My pleasure. Mia, four years, we’re going to be bursting at the seams.
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah, that’s right. The IPA has released a new report looking at different prisons across other different states around the country to anticipate at what stage each will reach their design capacity. And in Western Australia, we anticipate that that could be in less than four years time. Now, I don’t think this is a complete surprise because WA has been facing a prison overcrowding crisis for a while now. Just recently, we had a judge describe the conditions that one prison as dangerously unstable with a number of prisoners sleeping on the floor because that particular prison couldn’t house the number of prisoners that were coming in. And this issue is just going to get worse and worse unless some sensible reform is introduced to do something about it.
Oliver Peterson:
Yeah, our Inspector of Custodial services has also been sounding the alarm for a number of years. You’ve got prisons like Casuarina where they were designed for one or two prisoners in a cell. Now they’re putting mattresses on a floor with somebody basically sleeping with their head up against a toilet bowl. Now while people will say, you do the crime, you do the time, and if you didn’t do that, then you wouldn’t be in prison. And that’s too bad. So sad. There’s also other issues at play here, and we are now seeing prisoners here in Western Australia, Mia, and I’m sure you’d see that in your research across the country who are now left locked up for almost 24 hours a day because of the conditions, the lack of prison officers and the overcrowding situations that these prisons are all under the microscope for at the moment.
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah. Well, and I can understand that sentiment that people are saying, well, these are offenders and they’ve broken the law, so this is somewhat their punishment. Why should we provide them with a cushy environment? And I can understand for some really violent crimes, why many members of the community might feel that way. But what we do have to remember is a majority of these prisoners will eventually be released back into society. And we have to think what kind of offender we want released back around walking around in the community.
And the reality is that if these prisons are overcrowded, that means those prisoners aren’t receiving the rehabilitative services that they need to reform them and ensure that they don’t go on to re-offend. And that’s a huge problem in Western Australia and other states with a really high re-offending rate. So that’s why the IPA, we’re calling on some sensible criminal justice reform to alleviate some of these issues. And one reform that we’ve recommended is that in Western Australia, 37% of those prisoners have been locked away for a non-violent crime. And most prisons are needed to lock away those who pose a threat to community safety. For those who don’t, those who have committed things like fraud or white collar crimes, perhaps they could be punished in other ways, which would leave more room in prisons.
Oliver Peterson:
So you are saying that we could reduce the prison population by 37% and send them into other programmes or other measures such as what, Mia?
Mia Schlicht:
Well, that’s exactly right. So 37% of those prisoners have been convicted of non-violent crimes, but it’s important to emphasise here that would ultimately be up to judges to make sure that an offender would be fit for this programme. And the programme we’re suggesting is something like an offender employment programme where those offenders would be subject to a range of conditions such as house arrest. But alongside that they would need to be out there working for businesses that can’t find the workers they need. And they would be earning a wage and that wage would then be repaid to the victims of their crime.
Oliver Peterson:
Would there be other reforms that would be needed to make this happen, Mia?
Mia Schlicht:
Well, there would need to be a range of conditions on this reform because just because there’s a non-violent offender, we’re not saying they should evade punishment. They have broken law, and therefore those conditions need to be imposed to a strict level to deter offending in the future. And that’s why you’d have things like a range of fines that would also have to be repaid back to the community to deter that behaviour. But where we’ve developed this reform from is the United States from jurisdictions such as Texas and Georgia, who have seen huge success by reforms such as these. Because not only has it alleviated their prison capacity crisis, but it’s also meant that they’ve saved money by reducing their incarceration rate. And that money can then be reinvested into crime prevention, such as putting more police on the beat, which ultimately makes the community safer.
Oliver Peterson:
What about building more prisons, Mia? I don’t think that there’s too many governments, and I’ve been saying this for a little while, that want to actually commit to building additional correctional facilities. Because I argue it’s not really sexy enough with the electorate. Are there not enough votes in just building more prisons? Are they too expensive, Mia?
Mia Schlicht:
Well, it’s a very expensive task to undertake, and ultimately that’s taxpayers who have to foot the bill for that. So there’s a frustration within the community. The taxpayers asked time and time and time again to cough up more money for the surging number of offenders when there are other options on the table, such as punishing non-violent offenders in other ways. The other reform that we’ve suggested is that here in Victoria, the state is broke. There is no money, but Victoria is in a unique position because they actually have an excess amount of prison places that are going unused. So the other recommendation is that perhaps Victoria could lease out those cells to states like WA, take those prisoners on, and then Victoria could reinvest that money into their community.
Oliver Peterson:
Okay. How come Victorian prisons aren’t full and the rest of the country, you got too many criminals running around over there, have you Mia?
Mia Schlicht:
Well, yes. There is a criticism that the bail laws, particularly here in Victoria, are too lax, which has led to offenders not receiving jail time for crimes that they should perhaps be receiving that penalty for. And that absolutely needs to be the first priority if violent criminals do need to be locked behind bars. But the other problem here in Victoria is we have a government who has spent an enormous amount of taxpayer money on constructing new prisons. We had one that cost $1.1 billion to construct. It sat empty for two years and taxpayers had to spend $36 million a year just maintaining those empty prison cells. So if there is a way that those empty cells could be used, then they should be.
Oliver Peterson:
Mia, thanks for your time.
Mia Schlicht:
Thank you so much for having me.
Oliver Peterson:
Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. That’s Mia Schlicht. 133880. So it’s a bit of radical idea, isn’t it? That the IPA is putting forward here that 37% of prisons here in WA have been incarcerated for non-violent crimes. So their proposal here is that those offenders could be punished to alternative measures such as offender employment programmes, home detention, fines, forced restitution, or even send some prisoners over to Victoria where they’ve got some space.
This transcript of Mia Schlicht talking on Perth Live 6PR from 7 October 2025 has been edited for clarity.
