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Australia’s prison population has hit a new high of 41,200 people, the end result of a 20-year rise in incarceration rates that has seen the number of people in Australian prisons more than double.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Monday found the rate of people in custody has increased 40 per cent in the last five years, while 33 per cent of those currently incarcerated were unsentenced. Of particular concern was the continued rise in Indigenous incarceration rates; the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate in Western Australian prisons now exceeds 4000 per 100,000 adults, the highest of any measured demographic in the world …
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Alex McKinnon, The Saturday Paper
