Research

Here you will find all the relevant articles in relation to Throughcare (pre & post release), which refers to the provision of pre- and post-release services for prisoners. ‘Throughcare’ is a term used to refer to programs that aim to break the cycle of reoffending by improving continuity between a prison sentence and life in the community after release.

‘Towards effective throughcare approaches for Indigenous people leaving prison in Australia and New Zealand‘, Research Brief 25, August 2019 published by Indigenous Justice Clearinghouse. Authors: Dr Andrew Day, Dr Lynore Geia, and Dr Armon Tamatea. In 2018, the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples concluded that a cycle of reoffending can result for those prisoners who are released from prison without support to transition into the community. It noted that incarceration leads to significant disruption in a person’s life that can include the loss of employment, housing, relationships and social support (see also Abbott et al. 2017) and identified the need for throughcare programs to be made more readily available (ALRC 2018). Although a large number of organisations, both government and non-government, now provide these programs, submissions to the Commission only identified a small number of programs that had been developed specifically for Indigenous prisoners – and these were diverse in terms of both the scope and the types of service that were offered. The purpose of this Brief is to consider the current status of throughcare programs in both Australia and New Zealand and to identify some key issues going forward

The recent research and articles related to the issues of school’s exclusion, which is commonly understood to be one of the drivers of offending in Australia.

‘Early Life Predictors of Suspensions from Primary School: Cross-Agency Indicators of Risk for School Exclusion in An NSW Population Cohort‘, published by International journal of Population Data Science, Dec 7 2020. Author: Kristen Laurens, Queensland University Of Technology. Excluding students from school via out-of-school suspensions and expulsions is a controversial practice in Australia and internationally, yet forms a key component of school welfare and discipline policies. There is growing concern that increasing exclusion at earlier grades and an over-representation of particular groups of disadvantaged students may intensify inequalities in educational, justice, health and welfare outcomes for excluded students relative to their non-excluded peers. Previous studies have focused predominantly on secondary school exclusions and on sociodemographic predictors.

Semester 1 2021 Suspensions and Expulsions, published by NSW Department of Education 13 Dec 2021. The data shows the number of students receiving Suspensions and Expulsions in Semester 1 between 2017 and 2021. Aboriginal students account for approximately 8.6% of all government school student enrolments but approximately a quarter of all students suspended. In 2021 there were a total of 69,022 Aboriginal enrolments in NSW government schools. Ten per cent of all Aboriginal students were suspended at least once during Semester 1 2021.

The most relevant research articles and papers related to the ‘reinvestment’ concept.

Redefining Reinvestment – An opportunity for Aboriginal communities and government to co-design justice reinvestment (JR) in NSW, November 2022.

Published by Just Reinvest NSW this is a landmark report based on research with Aboriginal communities in Bourke, Moree and Mt Druitt. It conveys their experiences of the criminal justice system and captures their perspectives on ‘reinvestment’ in NSW. The Report invites government to commence a process of co-design, led by those Aboriginal communities where local solutions are already being explored.

‘From marketisation to self-determination: Contesting state and market through ‘justice reinvestment’‘, Authors: Ben Spies-Butcher,

Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University, Australia & Gareth Bryant, Discipline of Political Economy, The University of Sydney, Australia

Originally published by SAGE Journal, Theme issue article A Economy and Space, July 2023

The most recent research articles and papers related to the need for smarter court orders which would reduce the chances of Aborignal people entering into the criminal justice system and being vulnerable to living in a circuit of offending.

‘State of Incarceration – Insights into Imprisonment in New South Wales‘, published by Justice Reform Initiative (JRI), December 2021. This report by JRI analyses the data from the criminal justice system in New South Wales is failing, arguing that the overreliance on incarceration is entrenching existing disadvantage, highlighting the need for much greater resourcing of evidence-based community-led programs which are shown to reduce recidivism. This report highlights the need for smarter court orders: “outlining serious problems with remand, with more than 3 in 10 people in NSW prisons unsentenced – an increase of 10 per cent over the last decade. New South Wales keeps 15 per cent of people on remand in prison for longer than a year, more than any other state or territory. More than half of people in NSW prisons have been held on remand for more than three months and more than a third have been on remand for more than six months.”

The most relevant research articles and papers related to drivers of offending for Aboriginal children and young people.

‘Restoration from out-of-home care for Aboriginal children: Evidence from the pathways of care longitudinal study and experiences of parents and children‘; Authors: B.J. Newton, Ilan Katz (Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW) , Paul Gray (Jumbunna Institute, UTS), Solange Frost (AbSec – NSW Child, Family and Community Peak Corporation), Yalemzewod Gelaw, Nan Hu, Raghu Lingam (Paediatric Population Health), Jennifer Stephensen (School of Social Sciences, UNSW). First published by Child Abuse & Neglect Journal, February 2023.