Punishment in Australia
Punishment in Australia arises when an individual has been accused or convicted of breaking the law through the Australian criminal justice system.
[10] Australia also detains non-citizens in a separate system of immigration detention centres, operated by the federal Department of Home Affairs, pending their deportation and to prevent them from entering the Australian community.
[12][13] In 2023, the High Court of Australia ruled that indefinite detention was unconstitutional if the detainees had no foreseeable prospect of deportation (for instance stateless individuals).
The first Australian colony was founded at Port Jackson (now Sydney) on 26 January 1788, and marked the commencement of many decades of convict arrivals from the United Kingdom.
[23] The various states and territories all formally legally abolished capital punishment in their laws, with the first being Queensland in 1922 and the last being New South Wales in 1985.
Article 6 of the ICCPR states the death penalty may only be used in countries that have not abolished capital punishment for the severest of crimes.
The Australian folk ballad Jim Jones at Botany Bay, dated to the early 19th century, is written from the perspective of a convict wanting to take revenge on those who flogged him.
The highest rate of increase was seen among prisoners on remand (ie: unsentenced, awaiting trial or sentencing), women and Indigenous Australians.
The amendments were partly the result of recommendations of the coronial inquest into the death of Ms Dhu, who died in police custody.
[62] The Attorney-General for Australia commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in October 2016 to examine the factors leading to the disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australian prisons, and to look at ways of reforming legislation which might ameliorate this "national tragedy".
The result of this in-depth enquiry was a report titled Pathways to Justice – Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, which was received by the Attorney-General in December 2017 and tabled in Parliament on 28 March 2018.
[63] The report listed 13 recommendations, covering many aspects of the legal framework and police and justice procedures, including that fine default should not result in the imprisonment.
In Bourke, a project called Maranguka Justice Reinvestment has police officers meeting with local Indigenous leaders each day, helping to identify at-risk youth, and includes giving free driving lessons to young people.
[66] Since 2021, yarning circles have been introduced in men's and women's prisons across NSW, starting with Broken Hill Correctional Centre, in a bid to connect Indigenous inmates with their culture, and reduce reoffending and the high rates of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Meanwhile people born in China, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Germany, Taiwan, South Korea and Fiji had incarceration rates lower than the national average.
[75] In 1992, the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre opened, as the second private prison in Queensland, managed by GEO Group Australia.
In June 2018, an investigation by the ABC revealed high rates of inmate violence, prison guard brutality and overcrowding at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre in Queensland.
Compared with $270 a day in a government-run West Australian jail, each prisoner in the privately operated Acacia facility near Perth costs the taxpayer $182.
As Australia’s prison population has grown and existing facilities have aged, public-private partnerships have provided opportunities to build new correctional centers while enabling governments to defer much needed cash flow.
[77] Conversely, a 2016 report from the University of Sydney found that in general, all states of Australia lacked a comprehensive approach to hold private prisons accountable to the government.
The authors said that of all the states, Western Australia had the "most developed regulatory approach" to private prison accountability, as they had learnt from the examples in Queensland and Victoria.
Western Australia provided much information about the running of private prisons in the state to the public, making it easier to assess performance.
[78] Additionally, community corrections orders have been argued to be cheaper and equally as effective as public or private incarceration.
[84] Among other bodies, the Australian Human Rights Commission has submitted a report to the Council of Attorneys-General Age of Criminal Responsibility Working Group.
[85] In August 2020 the Legislative Assembly of the ACT voted to increase the age of criminal responsibility to 14 in line with UN standards,[86] a move welcomed by Indigenous advocates.
This included an incident where, in 2015, Dylan Voller, then a minor, had his face covered with a spit hood and was strapped into a mechanical restraint chair for 2 hours.
[106] In New South Wales, prisoner work is organised by Corrective Service Industries (CSI), an arm of the state justice department.
In 2016, concerns were raised that prison labour in the NT was competing unfairly with private businesses and taking jobs away from free people.
NT lawmaker Robyn Lambley said "we have been told numerous times that the products that are made by NTCI are sold at a competitive price in the open market.
[10] An article in The Age, citing a report by the Institute of Public Affairs (a conservative think tank) as well as other figures, said community correctional orders are argued to be significantly cheaper than the cost of private or public incarceration (roughly 10% of the cost of putting people behind bars), "16 per cent of offenders who completed a CCO returned to corrective services within two years" compared to the nearing 50% in traditional prisons.
