Why the new UK Prisons Minister is a renowned reformist

Timpson is the boss of a shoe repair chain which hires and trains ex-offenders as part of a rehabilitation scheme, and he is also chair of the Prison Reform Trust. Earlier this year, he told the BBC: “we’re addicted to punishment”, adding that a third of prisoners shouldn’t be there, the result of “evidence being ignored because there is this sentiment around punish and punish”.

Like Britain, Australia has one of the highest percentages of prisoners relative to the population in the OECD. Nationally, there are 205 incarcerated people per 100,000 of the adult population. Starmer, and Timpson, have signalled a long overdue reform to the UK criminal justice system, and it raises the prospect the Albanese government may take a cue from their international counterparts.

Lorana Bartels is Professor of Criminology at the Australian National University, and a director/board member of the Justice Reform Initiative. LSJ asked her whether potential reforms to the UK criminal justice system, and prisons reform particularly, might provide lessons for Australia.

“That really depends on whether we are prepared to listen to the experience there,” Bartels replied.

“Australia has a higher imprisonment rate that all of Western Europe (including the UK). In fact, the Productivity Commission found that, between 2003 and 2018, we had the third fastest growth in imprisonment rates in the OECD, after Turkey and Colombia, while the UK and US actually experienced declines in this period. This is despite the fact that crime rates have generally been falling in recent decades.”

The latest official figures put the prison population of England and Wales at 87,453 out of a “useable operational capacity” of 88,864, an increase of over 93 per cent over the last 30 years.

In the year to June 2023, more than 44,000 people were sent to prison to serve a sentence. The majority had committed a non-violent offence. Almost two in five were sentenced to serve six months or less. According to the annual Bromley Briefing Prison Factfile report, short prison sentences are less effective than community sentences at reducing reoffending; and community sentences, which have more than halved over the last decade, are particularly effective for people with many previous offences, people aged under 21 and over 50, and people with mental health problems.

For the first time since 2010, Starmer’s government has also committed to reviewing sentencing as prisons in Britain face severe overcrowding. In 2019, then UK Prisons Minister Rory Stewart pushed for jail terms of six months or less to be scrapped to “relieve the pressure” on overcrowded facilities, with exceptions for violent or sex offenders.

Over-incarceration in Australia

In Australia, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) issued a report last year that revealed the state of our prisons. In the past four decades, imprisonment has trended significantly upward from 8,900 people in prisons in 1975 to over 40,500 in 2023. Non-violent offences account for 38 per cent of prisoners.

The latest quarterly custody statistics from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), show that in March 2024, the number of adults on remand in NSW was the highest on record (5,452 – up 674 or 14.1 per cent from March 2019). The number of Aboriginal adults in prison was also the highest on record (3,841 in March 2024, up 344 or 9.8 per cent from March 2019). In March 2024, there were 148 Aboriginal young people in detention, 27 more than in March 2019. Two-thirds (66.4 per cent) of the youth detention population is now made up of Aboriginal young people, which is a new record in NSW. The overwhelming majority of Aboriginal young people in detention are on remand (78.4 per cent), primarily for break and enter (29.3 per cent) and car theft (22.4 per cent).

The cost of incarceration has weighed on taxpayers to the tune of $2 billion outlaid over the last five years. However, a one per cent reduction in the number of non-violent offenders in prison would result in savings to taxpayers of more than $23 million per year based on the 2021-2022 figure of $2.3 billion spent on non-violent offenders.

In 2021-2022, Australian governments spent $21 billion on prisons. The construction and maintenance of prisons cost the Australian taxpayer over $6 billion in 2022-2023. As the IPA report tells, the cost to taxpayers equates to $405 per prisoner per day, or $147,900 per year.

According to the Justice Reform Initiative, an Australian organisation, the cost of adult incarceration in Australia is more than $6.3 billion per year based on the cost per person imprisoned being approximately $147,890 per year. The cost of incarcerating one child in custody for one day is $2,827. The cost of incarcerating one child in custody for a year is $1,032,027. Across Australia $855,257 million is spent each year on locking up children.

The goal of the Justice Reform Initiative, formed in September 2020, is to reduce incarceration by half in Australia by 2030.

Bartels says, “Much of the pressure in recent years has, in fact, come from changes to bail laws, rather than sentencing. Over the last decade, the unsentenced – remand – adult imprisonment rate has increased by 75 per cent, while the sentenced rate has in fact decreased by 10 per cent. So, we need to be focused mainly on ensuring appropriate access to bail, which is in turn closely linked to access to housing. When it comes to young people, over 77 per cent in detention are unsentenced, so we really need to address that as a matter of urgency.”

Alternative measures to incarceration

A range of measures exist for non-violent offenders, including electronic monitoring, home detention, fines, tax penalties, community service and rehabilitation.

Like Britain, many of Australia’s non-violent prison population are serving short sentences (fewer than six months), and in many cases, prisoners are reoffenders. In fact, more than 60 per cent of Australia’s prison population has been previously incarcerated, which is one of the highest reoffending rates in the world. Short and frequent sentences are associated with high recidivism rates and non-violent offenders make up 66 per cent of those serving short sentences.

Bartels says, “The evidence from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research isn’t specifically about prison sentences for non-violent offences, but it shows that short prison sentences aren’t very effective. For example, short custodial sentences exert no more deterrent effect than suspended sentences that are now abolished; short prison sentences are no better than suspended sentences for domestic violence offences; and short prison sentences are less effective at reducing crime than intensive correction orders.”

“As the research available on the Justice Reform Initiative website reveals, prison sentences aren’t very effective when it comes to short prison sentences  of up to 2 years, which account for the majority of sentences. In addition, the motivations for crimes such as theft and vandalism are more likely to lie in factors outside of the justice system; for example, poverty, lack of education and employment. Despite what politicians and the media would like us to believe, there is little evidence to support any claims that significant punishments prevent crime. Resources should instead be focused on addressing underlying issues such as disability, homelessness, poor literacy levels, systemic racism, and trauma.”

NSW government could fund an alternative model

NSW imprisons more adults than anywhere else in Australia, as revealed by the Justice Reform Initiative. On an average night in 2023, 12,316 adults were incarcerated, with more than 19,000 adults released from prison each year. NSW also has the second-highest number of children imprisoned in Australia. In 2023, there were, on average, 200 children and young people locked up in youth detention each night. Despite the crime rates in NSW falling over the last decade, the adult prison population of NSW has far outpaced the overall population growth. Tellingly, more than half (56 per cent) of adults in the prison system were repeat offenders.

In March this year, the Justice Reform Initiative released a report entitled “The Need for Alternatives to Incarceration in New South Wales”. The report deems the systemic incarceration of children and adults as “harmful, expensive and ineffective”.

The Justice Reform Initiative proposed a ‘Breaking the Cycle Fund’: a NSW Government investment of $300 million over four years to fund evidence-based, community-led alternatives.

Alternatives to prison that the report recommends include, amongst others:

• Early intervention and prevention programs, which have been shown to reduce crime at a population level by between 5–31 per cent, reduce offending among at-risk populations by 50 per cent, and significantly improve other health and wellbeing outcomes in children and families
• Alternative policing and alternative first responder models, which reduce criminal justice system involvement and lessen the likelihood of arrest by 58 per cent, halve the rate of crime and justice system involvement, significantly reduce levels of specific crime, improve health and wellbeing (especially for people with mental health conditions), and address the social drivers of incarceration while avoiding contact with police
• First Nations place-based approaches have resulted in significant reductions in crime, criminal justice system contact, youth justice contact and significant cost savings
• Bail support programs reduce reoffending by 33 per cent, increase compliance with bail conditions by 95 per cent, improve a range of other social and health wellbeing measures
• Post-release and diversionary community-led programs have resulted in significant decreases in recidivism, including First Nations services; services specifically designed for children-at-risk; and services that address addiction and mental health concerns.

The Breaking the Cycle Fund would enable community-led organisations and groups to deliver services that are evidence-based to be effective in supporting those at risk of committing a crime, and to prevent recidivism. What the report also makes clear is that multiple specialist services are needed throughout urban, regional, rural and remote NSW since, in many cases, people incarcerated in the state’s prisons are not imprisoned anywhere near their community or intended place of residence post-release.

The NSW Government is currently spending $713,940 per child per year of detention and almost $250 million on youth justice annually. More than 100 First Nations, legal, human rights and civil society organisations have come together with community services, charities, peak bodies, and unions to call on the NSW Government to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14. Raise The Age NSW points to research that when children are criminalised, they often end up within the justice system on an ongoing cycle whereas therapeutic, evidence-based programs are a significantly more humane alternative.