In an article entitled Is there any way back from the war on crime? Royce Millar and Chris Vedelago point out that the prison population has almost doubled in a decade. Especially confronting for Labor is that the growth is far greater for women than men, for Indigenous people it’s greater still, and for Indigenous women it’s greater again.
Our prisons are increasingly populated by lower-level offenders on remand, ineligible for bail, unable to get a timely hearing or incapable of meeting conditions for their release such as stable housing.
I have written two blogs on this
The ironies of being tough on crime (November 25, 2014)
The ” tough-on-crime” dilemma” (November 3, 2016)
The problem with locking up offenders, particularly first-time or low-level offenders is that in prison they come in contact with much more hardened criminals and the influence of these criminals often outweighs the chances of rehabilitation. This in turn leads to an increase in recidivism and individuals get trapped in a cycle explained in this causal loop diagram
This cycle is a reinforcing cycle where, that attracts individuals who cycled (often repeatedly) through the system and which also places increasing pressure on the prison system through public policies of “tough on crime”.
(To help understand this diagram click How to read a causal loop diagram)
As a society, we face a dilemma in the way we treat criminals. The political right argues that we need to be “tough-on-crime” which means locking up everybody who has committed an offence. The idea behind this is that it keeps society safe for the rest of us with all the bad people incarcerated.
An opposing view is that locking people up is often counter-productive and extremely expensive. Spending time in prison, it is argued, is a shortcut to a life of crime. The money spent on housing prisons would be much better spent on rehabilitation programs.
This seems to be ample evidence now that incarceration is not the solution to rising crime rates. In fact, it may be exactly the opposite with inadequate rehabilitation programs and early release programs driven by prison numbers making a contribution to rising crime rates.
The dynamics of this situation are shown in the causal loop diagram below.
The fundamental dynamic is that the number of convicted criminals and those on remand increase in prison population. This “population pressure” reduces the effectiveness and adequacy of rehabilitation programs. This in turn leads to the initiation of premature early release programs to ease prison overcrowding. Both of these factors lead to an increase in recidivism, often seen in the reoffending of prisoners released on bail. Public outcry normally follows the worst of these cases and the whole cycle begins again.
This particular set of loops is a reinforcing system which means that the situation continues to get worse as the prison population rises.
Fundamental to this particular cycle is the assumption that rehabilitation in prison is the best way of solving the problem. The practical reality is that rehabilitation programs tend not to be effective, particularly in the prison environment.
I will discuss one solution which involves intervention before the offender goes to jail in a later blog.
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