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Reports

24 May 2019

Published

Managing growth in the NSW prison population

Justice

Infrastructure

Management and administration

Project management

Service delivery

Workforce and capability

The Department of Justice has relied heavily on temporary responses to accommodate growing prisoner numbers according to a report released today by the Acting Auditor-General for New South Wales, Ian Goodwin.

At the time of this audit, the NSW Department of Justice (DOJ) was responsible for delivering custodial corrections services in New South Wales through its Corrective Services NSW division (Corrective Services NSW). From 1 July 2019, the Department of Family and Community Services and Justice will be responsible for these functions.

Within DOJ, Corrective Services NSW is responsible for administering sentences and legal orders through custodial and community-based management of adult offenders. Its key priorities are:

providing safe, secure and humane management of prisoners
reducing reoffending
improving community safety and confidence in the justice system.

The prison population in New South Wales grew by around 40 per cent between 2012 to 2018, from 9,602 to 13,630 inmates. This rate of growth was higher than experienced prior to 2012. DOJ forecasts growth to continue over the short and longer-term.

DOJ has responded to inmate population growth by doubling-up and tripling-up the number of prison beds in cells, reactivating previously closed prisons, and a $3.8 billion program of new prison capacity. DOJ has also developed a long-term prison infrastructure strategy that projects long-term needs and recommended investments to meet these needs.

This audit assessed how efficiently and effectively DOJ is responding to growth in the NSW prison population. In this report, we have not analysed the sources of demand or recommended ways that custody may be avoided. These are largely government policy issues.

Conclusion

The DOJ has relied heavily on temporary responses to accommodate growth in the NSW prison population. Sustained reliance on these responses is inefficient and creates risks to safety, and timely access to prisoner support services.

DOJ has experienced significant growth in the prison population since 2012. To meet demand, it has relied on temporary responses that are not designed to be sustained, including doubling-up or tripling-up the number of beds in cells, reopening previously closed facilities and using obsolete facilities. DOJ has also regularly moved inmates between its facilities to accommodate the increasing need for beds in metropolitan Sydney.

Relying on temporary approaches over a long period contributes to prison crowding and has affected DOJ's ability to manage inmates in line with its correctional principles. It has increased risks to staff and prisoner safety, and timely inmate access to prisoner support services and programs. In addition, the cost per prisoner per day increased over the past two years.

DOJ is progressively delivering new capacity to address the growing prison population.

In response to continuing and projected growth in the prison population, the NSW Government announced a one-off $3.8 billion program to deliver around 6,100 beds by May 2021. Under the program, DOJ developed and delivered two rapid build dormitory style prisons within 18 months. DOJ’s capability to deliver the program, including implementation of new beds and new prisons, governance, project management, risk assessment and commissioning has improved over time. Most new capacity will be delivered on existing DOJ sites, mainly in regional New South Wales.

DOJ has developed a strategy to respond to long-term projected growth in the prison population, but it has yet to be funded.

The Corrective Services NSW Infrastructure Strategy (CSIS) sets out challenges, strategic priorities, and planned actions to respond to projected growth over the next 20 years and improve overall system efficiency and effectiveness. But, proposed actions are subject to individual business cases and funding decisions. Three versions of the CSIS have been provided to, and endorsed by, the NSW Government. The key challenge identified in the CSIS is to overcome demand for prison beds in the Sydney metropolitan region. DOJ advised that it is developing a final business case to address metropolitan capacity needs, but this is subject to government approval and funding. DOJ should continue to highlight the urgency of this issue until it is addressed, as it prevents planned actions to improve system efficiency and effectiveness.

The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services outlines the performance indicator framework for corrective services in Australia (Appendix three). We have used measures from this framework to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of DOJ’s responses to prison bed capacity needs.

In this section, we analyse system-wide indicators as DOJ has not consistently published or reported data for individual correctional centres over the period of review.

Appendix one - Response from agency

Appendix two - Managing women in custody

Appendix three - Corrective services performance indicator framework

Appendix four - About the audit

Appendix five – Performance auditing

Parliamentary Reference: Report number #319 - released 24 May 2019

6 August 2013

Published

Cost of Alcohol Abuse to the NSW Government

Treasury

Justice

Health

Premier and Cabinet

Management and administration

Regulation

The NSW Government does not estimate or report the total cost of alcohol abuse. The Audit Office of New South Wales’ sponsored research estimates it costs the government over $1 billion a year, or around $416 from each NSW household.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #235 - released 6 August 2013