A good article that hilights a genuine concern.

One of the underlying problems with Australia’s various criminal justice systems is the conflicting nature of the two main (Australia-wide) aims of these systems, namely:
To punish crime, and
To prevent crime.
Criminologists have long been of the opinion that increasingly harsh sentences do little to deter either the same or other offenders from repeating those acts – it is the possibility/likelihood of being caught, not the severity of the sentence that is the primary deterrent.

But, notwithstanding the body of evidence in favour of this theory, this doesn’t wash with the general public. And it certainly doesn’t buy votes. Most Australian Governments are not the horrible “we’ll do anything for votes” animals that some posters here would have you believe.
But nor are they deaf and dumb to populist tactics.
As a result, they end up treading a line between attempting to punish crime for votes and prevent crime for the well-being of Australia, often with contradictory results. Now we’ve ended up with a system that doesn’t punish crime enough in the eyes of the mob, and doesn’t prevent crime as effectively as it should.

Mentally ill people (note – not “insane” – they still knew that whatever they were doing was wrong) are one of the primary casualties of this half-and-half approach. The other main casualties are the victims of crime.

One answer lies in either a hard-core approach to punishment like Singapore, a second in a hard-core approach towards prevention like Japan. The first will result in longer imprisonment of the mentally ill, the second will result in individual victims feeling more aggrieved (though the studies show there will be less of them).

Another answer (as Greg postulates) lies in maintaining the current balance but adequately funding prisoner rehabilitation, including mental health. But this is expensive and consequently, like the first two options, not without electoral risk.

Personally, I’d like to see an all-out effort towards crime prevention, but then I’ve never been the victim of a serious crime.

The growing problem in prisons should surprise no one.

Since the Richmond Report that heralded the throwing open of the doors of our Mental Institutions with forward planning as comprehensive as the invasion of Iraq (11) or the Gallipoli landing, the community has again resorted to incarceration - in the absence of large silos for the mentally ill where they were once kept quarantind from the rest of us jail seemed the logical answer.

In spite of a recent ground swell of outrage at the treatment of the mentally ill I suspect there remains deep seated stigma and prejudice agaisnt those who suffer from it.

With limited support or protection those vulnerable to mental illness have fallen further into poverty debt and often debt related problems treated as crimes - what's worse in the eyes of some they are highly visible - the good citizens of most of our towns are none too keen on these types cluttering up the promenades.

Beefing up the mental health services within prisons is an admirable objective - clearly there is a genuine need but it is artifically inflated by the lack of community support for those who are sick.

as long as we believe putting the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff as the best way forward this problem will haunt us for a very long time.

I enjoyed the article and believe our Jail population would decrease by 65% if we re-opened our half way house program. Which was set up to get people with a psychological illness out of institutions and Jails and to cope with their lives and our ignorance

This is a subject which I have first hand knowledge and experience. I've gone crazy. I'm lucky I guess in that I've come out the other side with self knowledge. The knowledge that a moderate mental illness is still an illness that involves choice. There are some mental illness where choice is moderated by certain medications. In the periods of lucidity, choice is still an option. Imprisonment without the assistance that points out the choices, asking the question, what do you value, is useless. Many mental illnesses are a product of inadequate values. People don't know that they have choices. In the midst of craziness you still have a choice.

Those choices are seen as limited by many factors, including education, learning disabilities, instillation of values.Some people who are labeled as mentally ill are simply not very smart, or are very smart but lazy. They learn to manipulate the caseworkers and the system.

Then there are the extreme cases where the mental illness is only regulated by medication. However that takes time. It requires a support system. A resource consuming system with very little return.

I don't have the answers. What I do have is a suggestion. Don't institute policy that is not accountable. Accountability from caseworkers and clients is necessary. Humans need to know that they are accountable for their actions.That includes caseworkers and clients as well as government officials overseeing policy

Australian Health is woefully underfunded, and mental health even worse. With a forecast budget surplus of $17 billion, how much needs to be held in reserve before we begin treating the health of the ordinary Australian with some commitment,it is one thing to have this amount in the bank, quite another to accept the responsibility of government to fund the services we have all paid tax to recieve.

Come on JH, we need urgent attention, Yes Winston Smith, another communist plot...

Shock Jock disk jockeys are not driving people into prison, Mr Barns.

It has long been speculated by mental health experts and criminologists that serious criminal behaviour is a form of mental disorder. It was once even termed “moral insanity.” But whether such people can be successfully treated in any meaningful way, in any meaningful numbers, has never been achieved yet.

According to the Centre for Independent Studies own report. (Rising Crime in Australia) Australians were at our most law abiding when we were at our poorest. The period of the great Depression marked the lowest point of criminal conviction rates in our history.

We now have to face the fact that criminal behaviour is spiralling out of control when it should be reducing. Poverty can no longer be used as a valid excuse because the entire Western world has undergone a period of unprecedented prosperity. Increasing Firearms Laws has done nothing and aging populations should also indicate a downward trend. Severity of sentence have increased and this has acheived nothing but increase incarceration rates.

I submit that Mr Barns’s is using right wing radio as a scapegoat for the failure of his own favourite social policies. Ethnic criminal behaviour is self evidently a significant factor in rising crime rates, and so too are our entertainment industries who persist in glamourising and endorsing serious criminal behaviour.

Rising juvenile crime rates are a wake up call that something is fundamentally wrong with the permissive society that people like Mr Barns advocate. The fastest growing crime statistic in the USA is now juvenile homicide. While Australia's AIC claimed it was "puzzled" at the serious criminal behaviour now being committed by children in this country.

With children now killing children, I don't see how Mr Barns can blame John Laws for it.