24 August 2023
Parliamentary Research Brief – Why Western Australia Needs Criminal Justice Reform
Western Australia’s criminal justice system is struggling under the weight of rising incarceration and finite resources to support its over-capacity prison system. New research by the Institute of Public Affairs has established:
14 August 2023
Mia Schlicht discussing IPA criminal justice reform research ABC Landline – 14 August 2023
On August 14, IPA Research Analyst Mia Schlicht joined ABC Landline to discuss the IPA’s research into criminal justice reform and how it can help fill labour shortages. Below is a transcript of the interview. ABC Presenter: In the 26 years Boulia’s held camel races, event President Shelley Lorensen’s seen them grow in size and professionalism. Queensland Racing has even
20 July 2023
The Cost Of Prisons In Australia: 2023
The fundamental aims of the Australian criminal justice system include ensuring public safety, deterring criminal behaviour, holding offenders accountable and providing restitution for victims. Incarceration plays a particular role in supporting these aims. It is important that violent, antisocial, and dangerous criminals are removed from the community so that they cannot bring further harm onto others. This isolation of threats
10 March 2023
Let Them Work: How Criminal Justice Reform Can Help Address Australia’s Worker Shortage
Australia is experiencing both an incarceration crisis and an unprecedented worker shortage. Sensible criminal justice reform can address the excessive burden on Australia’s prison system while also filling persistent job vacancies in the economy. The total cost to the Australian taxpayer of imprisoning roughly 42,000 prisoners is now nearly $4.5 billion annually. Over-incarceration imposes an additional cost on Australians by
8 February 2023
Time To Rebalance The Scales Of Justice
The death of Veronica Nelson in custody has finally convinced the state government to address the appalling rise in Victorian prison numbers, and, encouragingly, the state opposition agrees criminal justice reforms are necessary. Key to these reforms is a review of bail eligibility. The number of unsentenced prisoners, like Veronica Nelson, has more than doubled over the past decade. The
31 January 2023
Australia’s Incarceration Crisis Highlighted By New Productivity Commission Report
“Australia’s criminal justice system is fast approaching breaking-point, with urgent reform now required to stop wasteful spending of taxpayers’ money, improve community safety, and reduce unnecessary incarceration,” said Daniel Wild, Deputy Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs. Released today, the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services 2023 revealed; “Too many low-risk, non-violent offenders are being locked up, which
11 November 2022
Urgent Action Needed To Fix Australia’s Emerging Incarceration Crisis
“Australia’s sentencing policies are causing mass-incarceration, imposing significant social and economic costs on the community, and not delivering the justice outcomes we deserve,” said Professor Mirko Bagaric, the Dean of Law at the Swinburne University of Technology Law School. Today, the Institute of Public Affairs released a new research report, Australia’s Emerging Incarceration Crisis: Proposed Reforms of the Australian Sentencing
11 November 2022
Australia’s Emerging Incarceration Crisis: Proposed Reforms Of The Australian Sentencing System
The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has taken a lead role in providing empirically-grounded reform proposals for the criminal justice system, with a strong focus on reducing incarceration numbers. The report released in 2017, titled Australia’s Criminal Justice Costs: An International Comparison noted that ‘despite spending more than most countries [on prisons] and more and more each year, our results
5 September 2019
Why Western Australia Needs Criminal Justice Reform
Criminal justice reform is a combination of measures designed to arrest and reverse the rise of incarceration, reduce reoffending and crime, guarantee community safety, and save taxpayers money. This is an ambitious agenda but experience from the United States shows that it is possible—and for Western Australia, increasingly vital. Download the report here
5 September 2019
It Is Time For Criminal Justice Reform In WA
“The rapid growth of incarceration in Western Australia is imposing significant costs on taxpayers without improving community safety,” said Andrew Bushnell, Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. “Parliament should act now to reform the criminal justice system by expanding alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders and emphasizing the importance of employment for offender rehabilitation.” Mr Bushnell leads the
