[Greens-Media] Greens say justice priorities are skewed in state budget

[Michelle.Panayi at parliament.vic.gov.au]

Media release- 9 May 2013

Greens say justice priorities are skewed in state budget

"Prison operators are the big winners in this budget at the expense of 
programs that would help to keep people out of prison, with better 
outcomes for the community and at less cost to taxpayers," Greens Justice 
spokesperson Sue Pennicuik said today.

"There is another $131.5 million dollars in prison funding in this budget 
– almost $53 million for a high security unit at Barwon Prison and almost 
$79 million for 357 more prison beds across the system," Ms Pennicuik 
said. "On top of $819 million budgeted last year, including $670 million 
for a new men’s prison in Ravenhall, this brings funding for prisons over 
this and last year’s budget to $950 million or not much change from a 
billion dollars on prisons alone."

"The government’s harsh sentencing regime - with more to come, is 
resulting in an artificial and unnecessary ‘demand’ for new prison beds, 
which goes against all the evidence that prison should be a last resort," 
Ms Pennicuik said. 

"The Greens support alternatives to prison such as ‘justice reinvestment’, 
which in Dallas Texas has worked so well that the new prisons they 
initially thought had to be built in 2007 to meet projections were not 
built and the crime rate went down," Ms. Pennicuik said. 

"There is no real additional funding for the implementation of community 
corrections orders, diversion, and community support programs to help keep 
young people and non-violent offenders out of prison," said Ms. Pennicuik. 
"This is on top of the ludicrous idea of paying private prison operators 
bonuses if prisoners don’t reoffend after release, which was announced by 
the former Corrections Minister. Hopefully, that idea has been dropped."

"Also of concern is the insufficient funding to Victoria Legal Aid - $13.7 
million over the next four years in the midst of significant impacts in 
criminal law, family law and specialist community legal centres is clearly 
not enough," said Ms. Pennicuik. "The crisis in access to legal aid 
continues to be a serious access to justice issue and it is hard to 
reconcile this with the amount of additional funding for prisons and 
prison management (around $750 million)."

"On the plus side, it looks like the government has finally listened to 
our repeated requests for an independent body to compile, release and 
analyse crime statistics, promised by the Minister for Police almost two 
years ago," said Ms. Pennicuik. 

For more information: Sue Pennicuik  9530 8399





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Parliament of Victoria                                                                                                                    . 
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