The head of the Department of Behavioural Sciences in Medicine at the University of Sydney, Associate Professor Susan Hayes, told MPs that the number of intellectually disabled prisoners had doubled in the past decade. In another submission, the committee heard that more than a third of the women in jail on remand or serving sentences could be transferred to less corrupting, less costly and less socially damaging punishments with no threat to the community. Everybody is turning their backs.
Jails are the last stop.
The money could be better spent providing more cost-effective and socially effective alternatives for at least a third of prisoners such as bail hostels, intensive supervision drug units, intensive probation and parole. He called for a moratorium on the building of prisons for at least two years. We don't need to go down yet another path of American society. We can do something that's Australian and look after the families, look after the kids and at the same time make people pay for their crimes but not by putting them in jail where they are going to be destroyed and come back and harm us. The parliamentary committee decided to summons the chairman of the Serious Offenders Review Council, Mr Kep Enderby, to appear after he declined an invitation to attend.