Better Things

Why there's more to reducing crime than recidivism

Episode Summary

Keeping people from re-offending is a top priority for many governments. Should we be intervening earlier?

Episode Notes

It's a major problem in Australia and worldwide: our prison systems are overloaded and there's no end in sight.

Governments here and overseas are laser-focused on reducing recidivism as one way of addressing this issue – but as ANU Criminologist Associate Professor Jason Payne suggests, that's likely not the answer. In fact, we have policies and programs that are potentially counter-productive to the goal of making our community safer.

In this episode, we explore why it's so difficult to prevent crime, the relationship between who we're sending to prison and what the optimal recidivism rate should probably be, and where governments should be making a greater investment.

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Associate Professor Jason Payne is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Australian National University (ANU). He holds a Bachelor in Social Science (Criminology), a Graduate Diploma in Languages (Japanese), a Master of Public Policy (Policy Analysis) and PhD in Criminology. Jason specialises in quantitative criminological methods, developmental and life-course criminology and drugs and crime.

Since joining the ANU, Jason has developed and convened a number of teaching programs, including a successful executive training program - Data Analysis in Stata. He has been the successful recipient of a number of research grants and consultancies, including:

• Roettger. M. and Payne, J. (2015). Intergenerational trajectories of crime in the ACT: An exploratory data linkage study of Canberra’s highest volume offenders and their families. (College of Arts and Social Sciences - Internal Research Grants)
• Manning, M., Payne, J., Fleming, C., and Makkai, T. (2015). Determining the Cost of Alcohol to Law Enforcement (National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund (C1))
• Payne, J., Brown, R. and Broadhurst R. (2014). Exploring the causes and consequences of the Australian crime decline: a comparative analysis of the criminal trajectories of two NSW birth cohorts (Criminology Research Council (C1))
• Payne, J., and Willis, M. (2014). Piloting the incorporation of longitudinal data collection in the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program. (Criminology Research Council (C1))
• Payne, J., Keane, H., and Smith, GJD. (2015). Taking responsibility for academic integrity: a training module and Wattle platform for students and teachers. (College of Arts and Social Sciences Student Experience Grant).

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The theme music for Better Things is “One More Time” by Fab Beat.

Better Things is a production of the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences. It’s produced by Evana Ho.

You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @ANUCASS.