Half of released prisoners reoffend within two years

The Queensland Corrective Services annual report has revealed more than half of the prisoners released from Queensland jails are being sentenced for new crimes within two years.

More than half the prisoners being released from Queensland jails are being ­resentenced for new crimes within two years, new figures show.

The trend was revealed in the Queensland Corrective Services annual report, which also found assaults on prison officers had increased, while serious assaults on prisoners themselves decreased.

The report said 51.6 per cent of prisoners returned to corrective services within the two-year period.

This meant they were again jailed or sentenced to a supervised community corrections order.

The figure was 57.5 per cent the previous year.

It comes as the state’s prisoner population has soared above 10,000 and as a parole backlog has caused significant delays, with thousands of inmates waiting for their application to be assessed.

The report said it cost $207 per prisoner to jail them every day – about $2m across the state per day.

Despite the number of prisoners being ­resentenced, there were 526 offender program completions and 23,413 instances of in-prison re-entry support and 18,282 instances of post release re-entry support provided to prisoners to stop them reoffending.

Dr Terry Goldsworthy spoke to media today regarding a report that was released about policing yesterday. Pic by Richard Gosling

Bond University criminologist and former detective Terry Goldsworthy said the rate of reoffending was still high.

“There has been a reasonable reduction in the amount of prisoners reoffending in a two-year period, that’s a positive,” he said.

“The ultimate goal of our justice system is not to ­sentence people, it’s to have them rehabilitate and stop them from being recidivist ­offences,” he said.

The annual report also said assaults on prisoners and officers had increased in the past year, while inmates seriously assaulting each other had decreased.

The serious assault rate on officers per 100 prisoners ­increased from .1 per cent to .12 per cent last year, while ­assaults on officers increased from .77 to .87 per cent. The rate of serious assaults on prisoners decreased from 3.38 to 2.88 per 100 prisoners.

Assaults on prisoners remained almost stagnant, with 9.89 per 100 prisoners in 2020-21, compared with 9.81 a year earlier.

Assault rates were much higher than internal targets, but corrective services says that it has responded to the situation by managing out-of-cell activity, increasing ­behaviour management strategies, using intensive management plans and maximum security orders, and monitoring hot spots within the jails for prisoner ­violence.

BY THE NUMBERS

51.6% of released prisoners are back in prison within two years

HELP TO STOP REOFFENDING

526 offender program completions

23,413 in-prison re-entry support

18,282 post-release re-entry support

ASSAULT RATES (per 100 prisoners)

Serious assault on officer 0.12

Assault on officer 0.87

Serious assault 2.88 (prisoner on prisoner)

Assault 9.89 (prisoner on prisoner)

Originally published as Half of released prisoners reoffend within two years