Western Australia has the highest Aboriginal imprisonment rate of any state while expanding prison capacity. Yet shortages of stable housing can obstruct bail, parole and successful reintegration.

The Productivity Commission’s latest Closing the Gap figures should have caused a political shock. Instead, their release attracted remarkably little media attention. Target 10 requires Australia to reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult imprisonment by at least 15 per cent by 2031. Yet, to date, the national rate has risen by almost 30 per cent since the 2019 baseline.

Western Australia exemplifies that failure. On the latest reported figures, it has the highest Aboriginal adult imprisonment rate of any state. The rate was 3,302 per 100,000 in 2019. If WA were moving steadily towards its commitment, it would now be near 3,013.2. Instead, it has reached a staggering 4,306.

Because imprisonment has risen rather than fallen, WA must now reduce the rate by almost 1,500 per 100,000 adults in only five years to meet its commitment. There is no published recovery plan showing how that will occur.

The rapid growth of remand is one of the clearest drivers of this worsening trajectory. Nationally, in 2025, 45.1 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults in prison were unsentenced. The number held on remand was 91 per cent higher than in 2019, while the number detained for more than a year had more than doubled. These people have not been sentenced; many have not been found guilty.

Remand is often presented solely as a response to risk. But risk is assessed through the material circumstances in which people live. Without a stable and acceptable address, a person may be unable to obtain bail. Without transport, legal assistance or culturally safe supervision, compliance becomes harder. Court delays then turn disadvantage into months – and sometimes more than a year – behind bars.

Housing is therefore not an issue that begins at release. Its absence can help move people into custody before trial, obstruct parole and make successful reintegration far less likely. For Aboriginal people, these pressures are compounded by poverty, racism, displacement from Country and a chronic lack of culturally safe place-based support.

The imbalance is visible in the south west where I live. Bunbury Regional Prison holds almost 600 men. However, there are only four transitional houses available, each with three single-occupancy bedrooms. One house is prioritised for women returning from prisons in Perth, leaving just nine beds for released men needing housing support.

Access to these houses is linked to parole, making them generally unavailable to those who complete their full sentence. Some Aboriginal men serve their entire sentence rather than accept parole conditions they experience as intrusive and difficult to satisfy. Others may be denied parole because they lack suitable accommodation, which is the very support they need to leave prison successfully. Either way, they can walk through the prison gate with nowhere stable to live.

People released from custody must then compete for scarce crisis, short-term and affordable accommodation. Through my work, I know men who have left prison only to couch-surf, armchair-ride, live under carports, camp in the bush or squat in abandoned buildings.

The latest national prison-health data show that one in four prison entrants had experienced homelessness in the preceding month, while about one in three people preparing for release expected to be homeless.

WA has reintegration services and homelessness programs, but its budget identifies no dedicated statewide pool of post-release housing, let alone culturally safe accommodation reserved for Aboriginal people leaving custody. Instead, assistance is bundled into broader programs, forcing former prisoners, already burdened by stigma, to seek shelter within a system overwhelmed by urgent need.

The contrast is a policy disgrace. The WA Government can build accommodation at scale – provided it is behind prison walls. An ABC report identifies 373 additional beds at Casuarina Prison, while the 2026–27 budget brings the Acacia Prison expansion to 480 beds. Together, these projects will add 853 beds at substantial public cost.

Within that response, the budget allocates $67.2 million to custodial expansion and $239.4 million to services required by a growing prisoner population. Yet there is no comparable, clearly identified commitment to the transitional housing needed to support successful release and return WA to the agreed Target 10 trajectory.

Redirecting expenditure outside the gate is not charity. It is sound public policy. Australian research comparing people given public housing after prison with those receiving private-rental assistance found that, after housing, police incidents fell 8.9 per cent a year and time in custody fell 11.2 per cent. Justice costs initially fell by almost $5,000 per person and then by another $2,040 each year. Public housing produced a net benefit rather than an additional cost.

Humane conditions inside prisons matter. But continuously building cells in response to unmanaged demand does not resolve overcrowding; it institutionalises it. Every new bed creates continuing staffing and operating costs while leaving the causes of imprisonment intact.

The WA Government should publicly justify every dollar of its prison expansion against Target 10. Funding earmarked for prison infrastructure beyond what is needed to remedy unsafe conditions should be redirected to Aboriginal community-controlled bail accommodation, transitional housing and permanent homes. Meeting Target 10 requires a targeted, at-scale housing program outside prison, delivered in community and for community.

Target 10 remains a commitment to reduce Aboriginal imprisonment: it is not permission to finance enough cells for its continued growth.

Western Australia must stop budgeting for failure and begin funding the conditions that make freedom possible.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.