Summary
At a time when a majority of Australian prisons are seriously overcrowded, the state of Victoria stands alone in maintaining a significantly lower imprisonment rates. Victoria uses imprisonment as a sanction of last resort, and community and alternate sentences are in place to ensure that imprisonment is restricted to people who are obviously dangerous, or whose crimes are such that one would reasonably expect these to be separated from the rest of the community.
The approach is not without problems. Victoria has fewer prison beds per capita (keeping costs down), but its institutions do experience overcrowding; public opinion is not always positive; and development of community penalties takes time. The papers in this collection, by administrators, practitioners, and academics, discuss the benefits and difficulties of Victoria’s approach to the problem of prison overcrowding.
Contents
I. Controlling Prison Crowding: the Victorian Approach. – 1. The political imperative / Jim Kennan. – 2. Sentencers’ reactions / Murray Gerkens. – 3. Practical aspects of Victoria’s approach / Bill Kidston.
II. Commentaries on Victoria’s Approach. – 1. Whose gaols? Whose goals? / Alec Lobban. – 2. A police perspective on prison populations / David Hunt. – 3. Ovecrowding: police and prisons / Simon Brown-Greaves. – 4. A further commentary / George Zdenkowski. – 5. A magistrate’s view.
III. – 1. Crowding and prison management / Tom Abbott. – 2. Electronic technology as an alternative to prison / Richard Fox. – 3. Reflections on prison crowding / David Grant & Barry Apsey.