The Director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) Dr Don Weatherburn says the state’s prison population over the next eight months is going to explode.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“Our current forecast is that the prison population will reach just under 13,500 in early 2017," he said.
The NSW adult prison population grew by 6.5 per cent between July, 2015 and June, 2016, reaching 12,550 It means the numbers have jumped 21 percent in the last two years.
The NSW government has scoped land at a number of NSW Correctional facilities including Wellington to look at an expansion of the jail.
Boscar says the increase is attributable to a growth in prisoners on remand, unconvicted prisoners awaiting trial or sentence. Between July 2015 and June 2016 the number of adult prisoners on remand grew by 14.8 per cent (from 3,633 to 4,170). Over the same period, the number of sentenced prisoners rose by 2.8 per cent (from 8,148 to 8,380).
The growth in the remand population is due to the length of time being spent on remand.
Over the last year, the number of remand prisoners in custody grew by 6.1 per cent. The average length of stay by prisoners leaving remand during the first quarter of this year was 47 days. In the last quarter this increased to 55.2 days.
