However, Flinders University’s Professor Mark Halsey says that addressing this is complex, and needs a multi-pronged approach.
“Even the best rehabilitative work can falter if it’s not matched by addressing the social, economic and cultural situations that people return to on release,” he says.
“We have to understand how and why the experience of imprisonment supports but also often prevents people from progressing to a better life —and research plays a crucial role in that process.”
Identifying how and why people stop offending
Professor Halsey and colleagues are examining how prisons can actively and consistently support people to stop offending.
“A key issue for policy makers is finding a way to identify what constitutes a rehabilitative prison,” says Professor Halsey.
“Drawing extensively on the perspectives of prison staff and prisoners, our research is providing suggestions for how to improve prison practice and more meaningfully assist people to stop participating in crime.”
Empowering young people to avoid prison
Dr Simone Deegan – one of South Australia’s 2024 Young Tall Poppies in Science – is combining criminology and law to understand how trauma and disadvantage set young Australians on a pathway to prison.
Her research aims to empower young people through new learning opportunities to help them build better lives, which will lead to safer communities.
Dr Deegan’s research has produced film projects with incarcerated young people, as a tool to promote social change and justice reform. These documentaries tackle issues of entrenched disadvantage, juvenile brain development, mandatory sentencing and issues affecting reintegration to society and parole.
Ensuring justice for the vulnerable
Other people at risk in the justice system are being studied by researchers. Professor Robyn Young has highlighted the vulnerability of people with autism appearing before courts.
Having examined the treatment of autistic people who find themselves inside the criminal justice system, she notes that some may not have understood the wrongfulness of their behaviour, were unable to control their conduct, were coerced into criminal activity or have difficulty answering questions that a jury may equate to deception.
“There are many people who are preying on vulnerable people, and the autistic community is very much at risk of finding themselves tangled in compromising legal situations,” says Professor Young.
“If you have autism, you are seven times more likely to interact with the criminal judicial system and more likely to be arrested if you have an encounter with a police officer than people who do not have autism – and this is despite being no more likely to commit a crime.”
Raising of the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years old in South Australia has shone a spotlight on the research of criminology expert Dr Katherine McLachlan. She is studying how traumas through childhood adversity can change their neurological and emotional functioning, impacting their behaviour and increasing the risk of re-offending. She is advocating for more compassionate trauma-informed criminal justice, using research evidence to inform effective crime prevention and individualised sentencing.
Research starts at the crime scene
Research innovations in criminology begin at a crime scene, with new investigations by Flinders forensic scientists Dr Duncan Taylor and Dr Mariya Goray enabling investigators to gather evidence that can accurately replicate the movements of a culprit at the place of crime.
Their work to highlight the way human DNA moves within indoor spaces, coupled with substantial improvements in the sensitivity of forensic DNA techniques, now allows for very small traces of human DNA, originating from only a few cells, to be tested and presented as evidence in court.
“The results of these studies will help decision-making to target appropriate areas for sampling at a crime scene – especially within a house,” says Dr Goray, “It shows that piecing together evidence to accurately replicate the movements of a culprit at a crime scene is becoming a more exact science.”
