The cost of Victoria’s crime crackdown is beginning to emerge, as the financially strained state government faces criticism over a $727m plan to expand prison capacity as the number of people on remand rises.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, visited the state’s new Western Plains Correctional Centre on Tuesday to announce next week’s state budget would include funding to open nearly 1,000 additional adult prison beds and 88 youth justice beds, along with hundreds of new corrections staff.
Allan told reporters the increased capacity was needed after changes to the state’s bail laws, which came into effect in March.
“Our tough new bail laws, they are working. We are seeing an increase on the number of alleged offenders on remand,” she said.
“We’re backing that with more beds and more corrections staff.”
Government data for April shows a 22% rise in adults on remand and a 71% increase in young people compared with the same time last year.
Nerita Waight, the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (Vals), said it was “flawed, deeply troubling and misguided” to “celebrate” growing remand numbers.
“This does not equate to community safety and only causes further distress, trauma and cycles of harm,” she said.
Waight said Vals’ dedicated youth legal practice, Balit Ngulu, has seen a 300% increase in young people held on remand since June last year. For Vals’ adult clients, there has been a 216% increase.
“In an already tight fiscal environment, today’s announcement shows that Premier Allan’s invested in expanding prisons and not programmatic solutions that would create a safer Victoria for all of us, not just some of us,” she said.
The Jesuit Social Services’ CEO, Julie Edwards, said the money was being spent at the “wrong end of the system” and “won’t do anything” to prevent crime.
“We’re really concerned by the news that the Victorian government is committing well over half a billion dollars of new funding to a costly, ineffective prison system which is at odds with all of the evidence about how to create stronger, more cohesive communities with less crime and fewer victims,” Edwards said.
Maggie Munn, First Nations director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said the announcement was “shameful” and urged more investment in housing, health and legal services instead.
Sarah Toohey from the Community Housing Industry Association Victoria said $727m would build more than 1,400 community housing properties for those in need, including people released from prison into homelessness, of which 40% are likely to reoffend.
“Investing in long-term housing … is both crime prevention and a cost saving to government in prison spending,” Toohey said.
Asked if more funding for crime prevention would be in the budget, Allan said: “We will have much more to say between now and next Tuesday.”
The $727m figure also matches the amount announced on Monday to “switch on” the Metro Tunnel project and introduce high-frequency services on the Sunbury, Cranbourne and Pakenham lines.
The Greens leader, Ellen Sandell, said the government had got their priorities “all wrong” in the upcoming budget.
The $1bn Western Plains Correctional Centre, which has sat empty since it was completed in 2023, will open in July. It will replace the ageing Port Phillip prison, which is scheduled to close by the end of the year, and once fully operational will house up to 1,300 prisoners.
The opposition police spokesperson, David Southwick, said the 1,000 new beds announced by the government only offset those being closed at Port Phillip. The government has disputed this.
Other beds have also been closed at other prisons due to mould infestations, Southwick added.
“They’re throwing taxpayer money at the mess without a real plan to fix it,” he said.
The government also introduced new legislation on Tuesday to mandate additional jail time for prisoners who assault corrections staff.
