Government plays a critical role in funding and supporting First Nations community leaders to develop local justice reinvestment initiatives, along with implementing critical systems reform to address the systemic drivers of incarceration that sit outside the strengths and power of community.

Australia has a long advocacy history of calls to action upon the Australian government to make a long-term investment in First Nations community-led solutions, including justice reinvestment.

In the early days these calls to action were largely led by lived-experience First Nations Australians along with a large network of advocates, researchers and non-government organisations. In 2009, their calls to support justice reinvestment began to build stronger public momentum with the release of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Social Justice Report. In 2010, shortly after its release, the Australian Greens Party included justice reinvestment as part of its justice platform.

Over the coming years public and government support steadily grew with the feasibility of justice reinvestment being examined in closer detail within various research and policy publications, including several commissioned by federal, state and territory governments, along with endorsement from the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples in 2013.

In 2015, this network of supporters for justice reinvestment came together to form the Justice Reinvestment Network Australia, an unincorporated coalition of First Nations community members and justice reinvestment advocates within the government and non-government sectors.

Alongside this, the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT also launched a strategic initiative to explore justice reinvestment in Bourke, NSW. This work has since evolved into the Maranguka Community Hub (a local community organisation guided by the Bourke Tribal Council) and Just Reinvest NSW (the NSW peak body for justice reinvestment).

In 2018, KPMG conducted an impact assessment of the work of Maranguka with staggering success. They calculated that Maranguka saved the NSW economy $3.1 million, five times their operating costs through impact of the justice system and broader local economy.

At this time, communities and governments from across Australia also begun to develop their own approaches to justice reinvestment. This included the communities of Moree, NSW (with support from Just Reinvest NSW) and Halls Creek, WA (with support from the Halls Creek Shire Council and Social Reinvestment WA). The ACT Government also launched its own approach to justice reinvestment entitled ‘Building Communities, Not Prisons’.

During this same period, the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Pathways to Justice report made multiple recommendations to develop justice reinvestment in Australia, including the establishment of a national body and place-based funding for communities seeking to develop their own justice reinvestment approach.

The Liberal / National Party Government who had requested the review never responded to the recommendations prior to losing office in May 2022. Upon gaining office, the Australian Labor Party made a budget commitment of $81.5 million over four years to expand justice reinvestment as an action under Closing the Gap outcomes 10 and 11.

In 2023, a national design consultation for justice reinvestment was launched aimed at informing the design of a national grants opportunity and independent national body to guide the implementation of their justice reinvestment commitments. In September 2023, the National Justice Reinvestment Program has been launched, with the National Justice Reinvestment Unit set to be established in 2024.

Notwithstanding the enormous progress to date in support of justice reinvestment across Australia, there is still significant work to be done to shift community-government partnerships and public policy towards long-term investment in a community-led justice reinvestment model.

The below page identifies the ongoing policy priorities of the Justice Reinvestment Network Australia in working towards this vision, along with links to the key publications that have been pivotal to the growth of justice reinvestment in Australia to date.

Public policy shifts towards justice reinvestment

Our policy priorities

Self-determination

Long-term funding

Systems reform