Institute of Public Affairs says Victoria could house other states’ prisoners to ease overcrowding
Approximately 160 years after the convicts moved to Australia, a plan to turn Victoria into a kind of prison for the rest of the nation, while the state’s prison network struggled with extreme crowds.
The right -leaning thinking tank, the Institute of Public Relations, believes that the Victoria government will earn 290 million dollars a year by renting cells for prisoners from other judicial fields as part of a wider revision of Australia’s approach to imprisonment.
Victoria can host inter -state prisoners and collect money for the state while reducing the pressure on the country’s prison system.Credit: Jason South
Governments spend $ 6.8 billion a year to build and carry out 113 prisons of 44,403 people in 2024. Prisoners cost an average of $ 159,510 per year, and spending on the prison network is increasing by 50 percent in inflation -based dollars in the last decade.
According to IPA, almost every state and region – except Victoria – is rapidly approaching prison capacity. Queensland is expected to reach the capacity this month, South Australia until the middle of 2028, and at the end of Western Australia in 2029 and NSW at the end of 2036.
Victoria is not expected to be close to capacity close to existing trends by 2040, which has built several new prisons in recent years.
In June last year, Victoria had 5918 prisoners, half of the number of NSW (12,946) and Queensland (10.879) and Western Australia (7814).
Mia Schlicht, an IPA research assistant, said the country’s prison system is on the verge of a capacity crisis.
Schlicht, Victoria could have taken prisoners from other states because of their excessive cell capacity, Mississippi and Oklahoma could increase their prison systems.
