We wanted to quantify what social factors increase a person鈥檚 chance of ending up in prison, and to use that to improve policy and reduce the harms and costs of incarceration.
You might have heard the phrase 鈥渟ocial determinants of health鈥. It鈥檚 the idea that social factors 鈥 such as poverty, access to education, where you live and whether you face discrimination 鈥 have a huge influence on your .
These determinants explain why worse health outcomes persist for some groups of people, despite incredible advances in medical care. This understanding has helped improve health policy in .
We wanted to explore that idea in relation to incarceration. That is, to quantify what social factors increase a person鈥檚 chance of ending up in prison, and to use that to improve policy and reduce the harms and costs of incarceration.
Because while and governments have committed to , the incarceration rates of certain groups of people remain shamefully high. These groups include , those with , and people experiencing and .
Our findings, published , reveal a criminal 鈥渏ustice鈥 system that is far from just.
We analysed studies of a data set containing information on 2,731 people who have been incarcerated in NSW.
The data comes from government agencies: NSW police, courts, corrections, and health and human services agencies such as housing and child protection. The data set is longitudinal. That means we can see the contact people had with services and institutions over time 鈥 from brushes with child protection services and police, to admissions to hospital and time spent in custody.
We identified eight factors as 鈥渟ocial determinants of justice鈥. Our analysis showed that your chance of ending up in prison is greatly increased by:
And importantly, we found the more of these factors you experience, the more likely you are to be incarcerated and reincarcerated.
The people in our data set are often in custody on remand (not yet sentenced) and for minor offences, going in and out of the system on a criminal legal conveyor belt. This damages lives and doesn鈥檛 make our communities safer long term.
We know from decades of work on the social determinants of health that our health outcomes are greatly affected by our .
People working in this area have developed the concept of the . Poor nutrition can contribute to chronic disease, but we鈥檝e it doesn鈥檛 help to just tell people to eat healthier food because there are many barriers to being able to do that. Policy needs to focus on making nutritious food affordable and accessible to really make a difference.
For justice outcomes, there are also structural factors at play. For example, a person with cognitive disability who grew up in a middle class family with access to early support is very unlikely to go to prison, even if they are involved in offending. They have greater access to social advantages than, say, an Aboriginal person with cognitive disability from a remote town that has many police officers but .
We can see from government data how many people end up in youth and adult detention after child protection, education, disability and health services . Activists and advocates from racialised and disadvantaged communities have been speaking up about this for many years.
All this highlights that we need broader system and policy changes to reduce the unacceptable social and economic costs of incarceration.
We have further developed the concept of the social determinants of justice to identify the 鈥渃auses of the causes鈥 of who goes to prison. These are:
entrenchment of poverty and unequal access to resources in families and neighbourhoods
structural racism and discrimination, in particular experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and people with disability
failure to adequately respond to the abuse, violence and trauma experienced by so many children and young people
operation of the criminal legal system itself in the way that it is criminogenic; that is, it increases rather than reduces the likelihood of future incarceration.
The social determinants of justice. McCausland & Baldry, 2023
The social determinants of justice show up in the of certain communities, lack of access to well-resourced , not being granted , and limited specialist .
To really make a difference to one of the most pressing policy challenges in Australia 鈥 the shamefully high rates of incarceration of Indigenous people and those with disability and mental health issues 鈥 we need to focus efforts and resources on addressing these social determinants.
To truly reduce the harms and costs of incarceration, we can鈥檛 just roll out behaviour-change programs in prisons. And we can鈥檛 just focus on what police are doing or what happens to people in court 鈥 though these are important.
As well as a major overhaul of the criminal legal system, we also have to make sure other government agencies and non-government organisations are being held accountable; that people are getting the services and support they need before they end up in prison.
The social determinants of justice could inform policy to ensure police are not the frontline service for people in crisis.
It could lead to changed government procurement processes that recognise the value of Aboriginal community-controlled organisations providing culturally led support.
It could guide a holistic case management model for people at risk of contact with the criminal legal system. It could be used in evaluating a diversion program to inform improvements.
It could inform a whole-of-government approach to enabling people to thrive in their communities instead of wasting lives and billions of dollars through incarceration.
, Associate Professor, and , Deputy Vice Chancellor Equity Diversity and Inclusion, Professor of Criminology,
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