Victoria’s Prison Population 2005 to 2016

Those security leaders or advisors working in the criminal justice correctional environment will be interested in the recent report from the Sentencing Advisory Council, Victoria. The Council today released a new report analysing data on adults held in corrective services custody to map trends in imprisonment in Victoria.

The report, Victoria’s Prison Population 2005 to 2016, found that Victoria’s prison population increased by 67% over the past decade (from 3,908 prisoners to 6,520), largely due to an increase in the number of people refused bail (particularly for violent offences).

There has been a decline in the number of sentenced prisoners since 2014 (from 4,973 in 2014 to 4,637 in 2016). However, this decrease has been offset by the increase in the number of unsentenced prisoners.

The report reveals that the increase in the adult prison population was unevenly spread across different groups of prisoners. For example, there has been a 75% increase in the number of female prisoners (compared with a 66% increase for males) and a 147% increase in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners (compared with a 62% increase for non-Indigenous prisoners).

In addition, the report provides a range of descriptive statistics for the current adult prison population in Victoria, as well as a discussion of the potential drivers of change observed between 2005 and 2016.

The full report and fact sheet can be found online: https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/publications/victoria%E2%80%99s-prison-population-2005-2016