By Royce Millar and Chris Vedelago
Rehabilitating offenders, rather than just locking them up, could become central to Victoria’s prison system under sweeping changes to corrections laws being considered by the Andrews government.
The move would represent the biggest change to Victoria’s correction framework in more than 30 years, transforming the system into one assessed not just on the security of prisons but also the welfare of prisoners.
The corrections minister wants to see more prisoners being rehabilitated.Credit: Jason South
Corrections Minister Ben Carroll told The Age his office was considering a review of the Corrections Act, 1986, amid concerns the number of people in custody was soaring and the system was failing to prevent widespread recidivism.
The government expects prisoner numbers to leap from 8110 today to 11,130 by June 2023. About half of all prisoners return to custody within two years.
Mr Carroll told The Age that after 30 years, the old corrections laws were due for an overhaul.
“If we’re going to change the Corrections Act and put rehabilitation in its purposes, I want rehabilitation to actually mean something – for it to flow through and for it to have accountability.”
The government has flagged that rehabilitation of prisoners and improving bail access services would be key to reining in the record number of people in custody.
Victorians are being locked up at a rate not seen since the colonial days of the late 19th century, as a decade of tough law-and-order measures has nearly doubled the state's prison population and tripled the running of prisons since 2009-2010.
The state budget also includes a record $1.8 billion in new capital spending on prison infrastructure over four years.
The surge will stretch the capacity of the corrections system over the next four years, despite plans to install hundreds of new beds and cells in existing facilities, and the decision to expand and accelerate plans for a massive new prison near Geelong.
Ben CarrollCredit: AAP
The explosion in prisoner numbers is being driven by a string of changes made under Labor and Coalition governments over the past decade, including reforms to parole, bail and sentencing laws.
Mr Carroll said he hoped rehabilitation would reduce the need for yet more prisons post-2023. But he confirmed the government had no plans for revisiting the controversial parole or bail laws enacted following high profile after high profile crimes including the rape and murder of Jill Meagher while Adrian Bayley was on parole in 2012, and the Bourke Street killings by James Gargasoulas in 2017.
Pressure is now mounting in particular for a tweaking of the tough new bail law, which is widely regarded as the single biggest driver of surging prisoner numbers.
If Mr Carroll pursues a review it would likely mean prisoners would be required to prove they had been rehabilitated by completing mandatory education and training programs.
About 91 per cent of prisoners are employed but only 36 per cent participate in education programs.
“All the research says that how you treat prisoners on the inside is how they’ll come out,” Mr Carroll said.
“We get talked about in Victoria as running an expensive system. I don’t think that’s such a problem when that means more time out of cells and more access to industry and training and things like that.”