BY EDWARD JOHNSTONE
BRISBANE — The just-released Criminal Justice Commission report, "Prisoner Numbers in Queensland", confirms that the massive increase in the prisoner population during the 1990s is unrelated to crime rates or state population growth.
The male prison population has increased by 86% and the female prison population by 173%. The rise has largely been fuelled by the "tough on crime" push by politicians for prisoners to serve more of their sentence behind bars rather than on parole or in community correction orders.
The report concluded that department of corrective services' policies and practices "have consistently tended to 'stretch' the average duration of stay of prisoners since 1993, particularly in relation to long sentences, and in doing so have increased the 'stock' number of prisoners" from around 3000 in 1993 to more than 5000 in 1999.
The "stretched" average duration, according to the report, is the result of a decline in the use of early release mechanisms, fewer parole approvals and fewer prisoners being granted the low security classification necessary to be considered for supervised community release.
Prisoners' Legal Service solicitor Karen Fletcher told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly that the reduction in parole approvals is a direct result of the same political climate that has produced mandatory sentencing in the US, and in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
"In Queensland, the National Party has campaigned heavily for prisoners to serve more time behind bars, in response to One Nation calls for 'truth in sentencing' and abolition of parole", she said. "The result is a massive blow-out in the prison population and colossal public funding for more prisons".
The "prison boom" has also been fuelled by the privatisation and corporatisation of prisons which has taken place in Queensland since the early 1990s, Fletcher said. US security giant Wackenhut runs the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre in Brisbane and other correctional facilities across Australia.
"The 'efficiency' of both private and government-owned prisons in Queensland is currently measured by the number of prisoners incarcerated divided by the resources expended. There is an incentive for prison operators to hold on to their 'profit-producing units', so why would they grant them remissions or recommend them for parole?", Fletcher said.
"Prison managers have been awarded salary bonuses for increasing the numbers of prisoners in their correctional centre and for accommodating two and even three prisoners in cells designed for single occupancy."
The Australian Bureau of Statistics December bulletin on corrective services revealed that 67% of the 2200 fine defaulters jailed in Australia in the last three months of 1999 were in Queensland.
"Prison has become a 'first resort' when sentencing indigenous people from remote communities, the homeless, the poor, the mentally ill and intellectually disabled", Fletcher charged.
"The state Labor government has been too frightened of an electoral backlash to take a stand against it. No major political party has had the guts to tell the truth about prisons — that they do not solve crime, they incubate it." she said.
The National Party has announced its intention to campaign for increased use of mandatory sentencing at the next state election. Currently, "third strike" drink-driving offences carry a mandatory prison term and a conviction for murder carries a mandatory life sentence.