The Justice Reform Initiative is supported by more than 100 of our most eminent Australians, including two former Governors-General, former Members of Parliament from all sides of politics, academics, respected Aboriginal leaders, senior former judges, including High Court justices, and those who have joined their voice to ending Australia’s dangerously high reliance on jails.

Australia now imprisons more people than at any time since 1900, in both total number and per capita, at a cost exceeding $3.6 billion annually or $110, 000 per prisoner per year. Our incarceration rate is above all Western European countries and Canada, among many others. Sadly, instead of reducing crime it has only led to higher rates of reoffending.

Although there may be a common perception that the public is ‘tough on crime’, there is clear evidence that the public in fact supports alternatives to imprisonment in appropriate circumstances.