By Royce Millar and Chris Vedelago
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 nearly doubles the state’s prison population.
And projections released exclusively to The Age reveal that the growth will continue into the foreseeable future: the Andrews government expects prisoner numbers to soar from 8110 today to 11,130 by June 2023.
The Olearia Unit at Barwon Prison is the highest security unit in Victoria, and opened last year.Credit: Jason South
The annual cost of running the state’s prisons is now more than $1.6 billion, triple the outlay in 2009-2010. And to pay for the burgeoning numbers, the government announced a record $1.8 billion in new capital spending on prison infrastructure over four years in the May budget to accommodate 1600 additional prisoners.
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.
The explosion in prisoner numbers is being driven by a string of changes made under Labor and Coalition governments over the past decade, including multiple reforms to parole, bail and sentencing laws, the recruitment of 3000 new police, as well as Victoria’s booming population.
Key factors have been the toughening of parole after Adrian Bayley raped and murdered Jill Meagher while on parole in 2012, and restrictive new bail laws introduced following the Bourke St killings by James Gargasoulas in 2017.
Extra spending to pay for the increased numbers will see the planned 700-bed prison at Lara, known as Chisholm Road, increased to its maximum capacity of 1248 beds even before construction begins later this year. The Dame Phyllis Frost women’s prison will also increase by 106 beds.
Space for an estimated 300 additional inmates will be found at Ravenhall men’s prison, which has already gone from a capacity of 1000 to 1300 since opening in 2017.
Corrections Minister Ben Carroll told The Age that another 550 other beds would be built within existing prisons across the state.
An analysis conducted for The Age by RMIT emeritus professor David Hayward shows that the increase in spending on corrections is now outstripping that for most other areas of government, including on hospitals, schools and, notably, social housing.
The contrast between the government’s spending on corrections and social housing - just $200 million for 1000 dwellings over three years - has drawn criticism from the legal community and the welfare sector.
Experts also question whether imprisonment affects the crime rate.
Melanie Poole is a consultant and former policy engagement director at the Federation of Community Legal Centres who has worked closely with women prisoners in Victoria. She said a lack of secure housing was a key factor in imprisonment, and that an investment in housing was also an investment in cutting crime and imprisonment rates.
People on remand now account for 38 per cent of all prisoners in the system, up from 19 per cent five years ago.
Ms Poole said the government had chosen a big spend on mass incarceration instead of addressing a “crisis of affordability and homelessness”.
“We know that one in four women who go to prison are affected by homelessness,” said Ms Poole.
“The Adrian Bayleys and James Gargasoulases of the world are a tiny fraction of the prison population. We do not need a mass incarceration system to deal with these extreme cases.”
The single biggest factor in the prisoner surge is the explosion in offenders remanded into custody because they are denied bail, the consequences of tightening bail laws and the response of judges in the wake of high-profile crimes such as the Bourke Street massacre by James Gargasoulas in 2017 and the failed Bourke Street terror attack in 2018.
Cafe identity Sisto Malaspina died in the Bourke Street terror attack.Credit: Eddie Jim
People on remand now account for 38 per cent of all prisoners in the system, up from 19 per cent five years ago.
The projection for 2023 anticipates a four-fold increase in the number of remandees compared to 2014, when the Andrews-led Labor was first elected.
By comparison, the government anticipates a 32 per cent increase in the number of sentenced prisoners by 2023 compared to 2014.
Mr Carroll said the government made “no apology” for tougher bail laws. He said the massive budget spend was about “stabilising” the system so other investments in bail access and rehabilitation programs could help reduce prisoner numbers in the future.
“Those programs will support individuals getting bail so that will have an impact, we would hope and expect, over the short, medium and long term in reducing remand numbers,” he said.
Analysis by the Sentencing Advisory Council shows that Victoria’s imprisonment rates per 100,000 declined throughout the 20th century but have now returned to 1890s levels with a sharp increase in the past decade.
Mr Carroll would not be drawn on whether the government was eyeing yet more big prisons post-2023 to cope with the ongoing increase in prisoners.
The Age is aware that before the budget the private prison sector was preparing for the announcement of new prisons for men and women in Gippsland near either Morwell or Traralgon.
The Olearia Unit at Barwon Prison is the highest security unit in Victoria Credit: Jason South
This week The Age also quizzed Corrections Commissioner Emma Cassar about the prospect of new prisons beyond 2023.
“We don’t stop planning,” she responded. “It could be a prison, it might be something else.”
“At this stage we can’t disclose where we’re looking. We’re always looking for appropriate sites or potential sites.”
Tomorrow: The Age looks at whether Victoria has the balance right between public safety and justice.