The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ annual report on Australian prisons, released today, shows the number of prisoners in Australia reached a 10-year high of 33,791 at June 30 this year.

“The 10-year high comes on the back of the largest annual increase in prisoner numbers since 2004,” said William Milne from the ABS.

“Both the number of male and female prisoners has increased by 10 per cent over the last year, continuing their 10-year upward movement.

“The annual increase in prisoner numbers has also pushed the national imprisonment rate up to a 10-year high of 185.6 prisoners per 100,000 adult persons.

Queensland experienced the largest annual increase in prisoner numbers, up 16 per cent, followed by Victoria, up 14 per cent.

The only state to have an annual fall in prisoner numbers was Tasmania, where it fell 7 per cent.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners accounted for 27 per cent of the total Australian prisoner population.

In 2004 there were 5048 ATSI people in prison, a figure that leapt to 9264 in 2014 — an increase of 83.52 per cent over 10 years.

Jesuit Social Services CEO Julie Edwards said: “We know that this is not making the community safer and instead our justice system is struggling to cope with the consequences of reforms.

We are seeing increasing numbers of people are getting stuck in the justice system, with the proportion who have previously served a sentence increasing by five per cent.”

Additionally, there have been large increases in the number of vulnerable people in prison, including women (30 per cent) and Aboriginal people (63 per cent) during the past four years.

Ms Edwards says the costs associated with the increased spending — having grown from $492.6 million in 2009-10 to $942.1 million in 2014-15 — are staggering.

“Serious questions need to be asked about the effectiveness of this enormous increase in resources, particularly as the most recent Victorian crime statistics showed an increase in the rates of many crimes.

“This is evidence that we are not seeing increased imprisonment having a positive impact on crime, and that we need to ensure scarce taxpayers’ funds are directed to where they will be effective,” she says.

Ms Edwards says that sustained investment in tackling the underlying disadvantage behind crime is crucial in creating safer communities.

“Recent justice policy in Victoria has ignored the evidence of what works and we are now seeing the costly outcome of overflowing, ineffective prisons.”