Justice Reinvestment
About Justice Reinvestment
Justice Reinvestment is a form of preventative action which intentionally addresses the underlying causes and social determinants of criminal behaviour, such as family breakdown, poverty, unemployment, lack of meaningful training and job pathways, drug and alcohol dependence, mental health issues etc.
In doing so, justice reinvestment seeks to create safer communities by preventing crime, rather than predominantly focusing on the more expensive aspects of reacting to crime after it has occurred, such as policing, prosecution and incarceration.
Why We Need Justice Reinvestment
WA has the highest rates of Aboriginal Incarceration in the entire nation.
In 2021, 76 percent of the children imprisoned in WA were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (Youth Justice Services, 2022), despite Aboriginal people accounting for just 3.3 percent of our population (AIHW, 2022). Historical injustices such as Stolen Generations, wage theft, and other colonial policies have deeply impacted Aboriginal people in WA - socially, emotionally, and economically. Subsequently inter-generational trauma and entrenched disadvantage and poverty are experienced at significantly higher rates than for the non-Indigenous population. Poor life outcomes associated with poverty are social determinants of crime.
Our prison system does not successfully rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders
Over 76 percent of youth offenders are sent back to prison within just one year of release (AIHW, 2019). Most people involved with the justice system experience complex social dysfunction prior to involvement with the justice system, such as unstable accommodation, substance use issues, and mental illness – many of which are not effectively addressed through the justice system. This continual cycle of incarceration and reoffending fails to make communities safer in the long term.
Our justice system is also considerably expensive and growing.
Adult and Juvenile Corrective Services cost over $1 billion a year (DoJ Annual Report, 2020/21) and the incarcerated population in Western Australia has risen by 14% in the last 5 years to over 6,500 people (Corrective Services, 2022). Strategies which seek to prevent offending, reduce incarceration, avert recidivism, and provide an opportunity to address unsustainable growth in incarceration and related expenditure while improving outcomes for the wider community.
Community-based initiatives that address the underlying causes of offending are significantly cheaper than incarceration and create better outcomes.
They create safer communities and help enable individuals and their families to thrive by alleviating disadvantage. It’s a smarter approach to justice.
Evolution of Justice Reinvestment
Justice Reinvestment originated in the USA as a means for states with unsustainable prison populations to reduce their rate of incarceration and associated economic burdens, by diverting resources from the tertiary end of the criminal justice system to early intervention, prevention, diversion and rehabilitation where costs are significantly cheaper. Texas saved $443 million over 2008/2009, and in 2012 closed a prison for the first time.
In Australia, justice reinvestment has developed further, prioritising place-based and community-led approaches that empower communities to lead transformation. In this way, justice reinvestment brings together both “bottom up” community development approaches and “top down” policy and systems approaches. Australian approaches to justice reinvestment also acknowledge that making a lasting and sustainable impact on community safety involves solutions and initiatives that fall outside the traditional confines of the justice system, and making a difference happens in many social and economic areas that contribute to community wellbeing.
The Maranguka JR Project in the town of Bourke, NSW (in partnership with JustReinvest NSW) was the first place-based Aboriginal community-led JR site in Australia. This project, alongside others such as Tiraapendi Wodli in Port Adelaide and Olabud Doogethu in Halls Creek, have helped shape the evolution of justice reinvestment in Australia.