Top judge sparks crime and punishment debate
Fri Jun 18, 2010
A top judge has says longer jails terms in New South Wales have not led to greater public safety.
The comments were made by the Chief Judge of the District Court, Justice Reg Blanch, in a speech to legal aid lawyers published this morning by Fairfax newspapers.
In the speech Justice Blanch says he does not believe spending $1 billion per year packing people into jails has led to increased levels of safety.
He also called for a review of laws that have led to greater imprisonment rates - including statutory non-parole periods, bail laws and mandatory disqualification for some driving offences.
The Director of the Bureau of Crime Statistics in New South Wales, Dr Don Weatherburn agrees prison is not the most cost effective method of crime prevention. But he says it can be a deterrent.
"Prison does prevent some crime, no question about it. But it's not a very powerful crime control tool and it is, on the other hand, a very expensive one," he said.
"So really from an economist's perspective, the question is can we get a better result by paying less? The answer is yes, if you invest a good deal more in rehabilitation.
"You can probably get the exact same result and have a lot less money left over for schools, hospitals and roads."
New South Wales shadow attorney-general Greg Smith says money has been wasted on current law and order policy. He says jails are too full and building more jails does not prevent re-offending.
"This government has not cared," he said. "Or if they have cared they've been careless in the way they've run it just by throwing people into prison. "They could be using probation and parole officers and other rehabilitation programs, outside the prison system, far more effectively than they've tried to."
However the New South Wales Attorney General John Hatzistergos says that, while there is a review of the bail laws underway, the results of government policy speak for themselves.
"We don't make any apology for our tough approach in relation to sentencing and we recognise the fact that that has assisted in reducing the incidences of crime by deterring people and incapacitating people from committing offences," he said.
"We also recognise these laws need to be kept under constant review and scrutiny."
Last week new crime statistics showed that the rates of crime for all but one of the 17 major categories were either falling or remained stable in the past two years.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/18/2930474.htm?site=news
