The Road Well Traveled in Australia: Ignoring the Past, Condemning the Future

Identifying the nature and causes of penal change over decades can be a fraught exercise, particularly where those changes are gradual and the reasons for changes are diffuse. Like climate change and weather patterns, Australia’s rising prison population is the product of forces that are also evident in Western Anglophonic societies but that vary in scale and speed depending on local conditions. These forces include penal populism, media influences, risk aversion, and distrust of the judiciary. Changes in the balance of power between the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive, increasing the power of the former and restricting the discretionary powers of the latter, all contribute to increasing prison numbers and more persons under correctional supervision. But where some jurisdictions have seen the cost and futility of continuous expansion of penal populations and appear inclined to draw back, Australia seems determined to follow this senseless path.