REPEAT criminals are costing the ACT an estimated $10 million-plus a year in court and police costs, with nearly half the prisoners released from Canberra's jail returning within two years, according to new figures.
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As the ACT government prepares for another tough local budget, data released to the Sunday Canberra Times shows some of the city's worst criminals have been caught by police as many as 49 times in the past five years.
While overall crime rates in Canberra have decreased over the same period, rates of reoffending were the second-worst in the country.
ACT Corrections Minister Shane Rattenbury said a pilot after-prison support program was on track to reverse the recent growth in reoffending, with early data showing only 10 per cent of released detainees assisted have ended up back in jail.
But Opposition Leader Jeremy Hanson said the scales of justice had been unbalanced after 12 years of Labor government.
"We should have lower recidivism rates than we do, and they should be trending downwards, and in general terms it's because they have put rights of criminals ahead of good rehabilitation programs and resourcing of the DPP," Mr Hanson said.
''The system I think is failing in the areas of sentencing, in the revolving door of bail and, clearly, in the failure to rehabilitate from offending.''
A spokesman for acting Attorney-General Katy Gallagher said 426 people had been apprehended for breaching their bail conditions in the 12 months to February.
The government budgeted to spend $47.6 million on corrective services this financial year. When the budgets of ACT Policing, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the criminal law spending of the courts are included, the government will spend about $220 million this year on crime. Funding for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was cut by $110,000 for the 2013-14 financial year.
ACT Policing said 430 people had been charged at least 10 separate times in the five years to December. The figure is up about 1 per cent on the previous five-year period, but the number of people caught by police two or more times has fallen by a similar rate.
The most recent Justice and Community Safety Directorate annual report showed nearly 47 per cent of detainees released from the Alexander Maconochie Centre in 2010-11 had returned to the jail within two years.
The figure was up from 40.8 per cent for 2009-10 prison leavers. The report credited a higher rate of supervision orders for those leaving in 2010-11 - up six percentage points - as the main cause of the rise.
Australian Federal Police Association chief executive Dennis Gellatly said the level of recidivism was a frustration and disappointment to police and the community.
The experienced station sergeant said rehabilitation and sentencing, including the automatic granting of parole to jailed juvenile offenders, needed more attention.
''It's not unusual for police to be arresting offenders within days of being released from detention,'' Mr Gellatly said.
Mr Rattenbury said the government wanted to improve the recidivism rate, and the preliminary results of the first nine months of the post-release Throughcare initiative - which helps prisoners access health, housing and employment services - were encouraging.
''There are 142 released prisoners who have gone into the program. Of those, 15 have returned to custody, which I think is a substantial improvement,'' Mr Rattenbury said.
