Politicians becoming less supportive of Imprisonment

Politicians becoming less supportive of Imprisonment says Law and Order Expert
“After three decades of rapidly increasing imprisonment rates across a number of countries there are signs that some politicians, and sections of the media and public, are tiring of the endless political bidding wars” says Professor Emeritus David Brown, of the University of NSW Law Faculty. He is visiting Wellington next week to share his views with a number of groups.

“Recent developments in the US, UK and Australia suggest that conditions may be ripe for a political shift on the reliance on escalating rates of imprisonment as a default criminal justice strategy for responding to crime. While much of that is driven by the economic recession, there is a growing realisation that prisons are extremely limited in their capacity to reduce crime, and probably increase it.”

Professor Brown will speak at a public forum at St Andrews on the Terrace, Wellington starting at 12.30pm on Thursday, 26th May, and will discuss the relationship between incarceration rates and crime rates within the wider context of the growing movement for rethinking the place of imprisonment in current criminal justice policy. He is closely involved in the Australian Prisons Project, which is addressing the continued growth in the Australian prison population over the last 25 years, with the aim of identifying the changes in penal culture that have led to a re-emergence of imprisonment as a frontline criminal justice strategy.

David Brown, is a New Zealander, taught Criminal Law, Advanced Criminal Law, Criminal Justice, Crime Prevention, Community Corrections and Penology courses at the University of NSW in Sydney from 1974 to 2008. He has given 120 conference papers or public addresses all over the world; and is a regular media commentator on criminal justice issues.

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