Our approach
We’re calling on the NSW Government to adopt a justice reinvestment framework and since 2012, have been working with the Bourke community to demonstrate the benefits of a community-led justice reinvestment approach.
Why now
Since 2012, NSW’s prison population has grown by 33% and currently stands at 12,989. Most people in prison have been there before.
Particularly affected are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are over-represented at every stage of the criminal justice system. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people people account for one in three women, and one in four men, inside NSW prisons.
Approximately 45% of children in prison are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Aboriginal and Torres Strait young people are 24 times more likely to be placed in juvenile detention that non-Indigenous young people.
The cost of locking up one child in a NSW prison is $1,343.78 per day. This means that NSW taxpayers currently spend over $490,800 each year on every child incarcerated, and costs are increasing.
We cannot afford to continue down this path.
A justice reinvestment approach can reduce the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people caught in a system that fails to rehabilitate, fails to deter and fails to build safer communities.
More about our work
Justice Reinvestment
in Bourke
Resources on
Justice Reinvestment