According to data just released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics the past year has seen a 4 per cent increase in the number of people placed in full-time custody in Australia's prisons. The Northern Territory, which also has the highest rate of people experiencing homelessness per head of population, has the highest imprisonment rate (889 prisoners per 100,000 adult population), followed by Western Australia (263) and New South Wales (175).
The ABS goes on to report that:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males in custody increased 7 per cent and females 12 per cent from the March quarter 2012. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners represented 28 per cent of the total full-time prisoner population in the March quarter 2013. The total Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population aged 18 years and over at 30 June 2011 was 2 per cent of the Australian population.
Based on daily averages, the highest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate for the March quarter 2013 was recorded in Western Australia (4059 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners per 100,000 adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population), followed by the Northern Territory (2951) and South Australia (2620). The lowest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate was recorded in Tasmania (547), followed by the Australian Capital Territory (1339).
'Prisons', in the words of the American activist Angela Davis, 'do not disappear problems; they disappear human beings.' Prisons do not address the causes of poverty and inequality. They are not a solution to homelessness.
In his 2009 Social Justice Report, the then Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Dr Tom Calma called for an alternative to this increasing rate of imprisonment of members of the First Peoples:
Justice reinvestment is a localised criminal justice policy approach that diverts a portion of the funds for imprisonment to local communities where there is a high concentration of offenders. The money that would have been spent on imprisonment is reinvested in programs and services in communities where these issues are most acute in order to address the underlying causes of crime in those communities.
Justice reinvestment still retains prison as a measure for dangerous and serious offenders but actively shifts the culture away from imprisonment and starts providing community wide services that prevent offending. Justice reinvestment is not just about reforming the criminal justice system but trying to prevent people from getting there in the first place.
Justice reinvestment is a model that has as