Extreme criticism of bail decisions in the wake of Molly Ticehurst’s murder could be behind NSW’s remand prisoner population surging to record highs.
More than 5760 people were in prison awaiting a hearing in June 2024, up 19 per cent from the previous peak of 4831 in June 2023.
The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research put the rise down to an increase in accused domestic violence offenders being denied bail, with a record-high 1811 DV offenders on remand.
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The previous record was 1460 in December 2023.
But the jump in remand prisoners pre-dates harsher bail laws brought in by the NSW government on July 1, when the onus was placed on serious domestic violence offenders to show magistrates and judges why they should be released.
The bureau’s executive director Jackie Fitzgerald said much of the remand increase could be tracked from April onwards, after Ticehurst’s death in the Central West NSW town of Forbes.
The 28-year-old was allegedly murdered by former partner Daniel Billings, who had earlier been given bail by a court registrar for other charges.
“There have been some legislative bail changes since then, but the change proceeds a response by magistrates to that decision, which was very heavily publicised for the circumstances that led up to that incident,” Fitzgerald told AAP.
“It seems like there’s been a little bit of behaviour change by magistrates that’s occurred around the same time as that quite horrific incident.”
Some 22 per cent of domestic violence defendants were refused bail in the three months to June 2024, up from 18 per cent in the quarter to December 2023.
That rate won’t necessarily increase due to the new bail tweaks, Fitzgerald said, given decision-makers had already taken it upon themselves to be more harsh.
“These types of changes in decision-making are pretty rare … it’s not like we’ve got a great precedent to see where it will land,” she said.
“But we can see that it does appear that over the last six months, people who are charged with DV offences have less access to bail than they did prior to 2024.”
Almost half (45 per cent) of adult prisoners were on remand, the highest proportion on record.
The number of sentenced prisoners has dropped 4 per cent since June 2023.
A third of the remand population were in custody for a domestic violence offence.
The Indigenous remand population has also risen, up to 1891 in June 2024 from 1466 a year earlier.