The number of people being held awaiting trial has significantly increased in New South Wales, even as overall prisoner numbers are decreasing. It was reported that there were 12,091 adults in NSW prisons in December, which was 1,544 fewer than four years earlier, but remand numbers saw a sharp rise, reaching a record 5,055 in the same month. This means that nearly half of the people locked up in the state have not been found guilty.
The increase in remand numbers was attributed to the inordinate number of charges being brought forth—specifically, changes allowing more people to serve their sentence in the community led to a 22 percent decrease in the number of sentenced prisoners. The Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) released these statistics, where Executive Director Jackie Fitzgerald noted that police showed increasing tendencies to charge individuals with offenses such as domestic violence assaults, which increased by more than 33 percent in December compared to the 2019 figures.
An escalation in specific categories of offenses like sexual offenses, non-domestic assault, intimidation/stalking, and weapons offenses further added to the rising number of charges. The increase in these charges was one of the reasons that drove authorities to keep more people out of prison. These changes are seen as efforts to reduce the number of sentenced prisoners, as well as remand prisoners, which had remained steady at around 90 days.
Senior lecturer in crime and justice at La Trobe University, Emma Russell, highlighted that people charged with relatively minor offenses are being refused bail and likely sentenced with “time served” when their cases finally come before the courts. She pointed out that these people are now getting pulled into the prison system. This trend is exacerbated by the housing crisis, which is causing an increase in the number of bail refusals in all jurisdictions.
Furthermore, changes to bail laws introduced in 2022 meant that people convicted of an offense likely to result in imprisonment would not receive bail before sentencing unless they were able to show exceptional circumstances. The president of the Law Council of Australia, Luke Murphy, emphasized the impact of the housing crisis on the number of bail refusals in all jurisdictions and the administration of justice. The number of adults in custody in New South Wales decreased by 1,544 from 2019, while there were 174 youths in custody compared to 170 at the end of 2022.