Globally, more than 11 million people are incarcerated on any given day, and an estimated 30 million people churn through prisons each year. In Australia, more than 60,000 people are released from prison annually and almost one in two people is back in custody within two years.

Indigenous people make up 3.3 per cent of the total Australian population, but account for 30 per cent of people in prison on any given day and around 35 per cent of those released from prison each year.

Sixty per cent of people in Australian prisons have been incarcerated before, but this proportion is much higher among Indigenous people (78 per cent) than non-Indigenous people (52 per cent).

The appalling over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australian prisons is not a new problem. Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody called for reforms to reduce Indigenous incarceration rates in 1991, the proportion of people in prison identifying as Indigenous has more than doubled from 14 per cent to 30 per cent.

As part of the Closing the Gap Refresh in 2018, the Council of Australian Governments introduced incarceration targets, committing to a 15 per cent reduction in the rate of Indigenous adult incarceration by 2031.

We won't achieve this target without significant reform. Recent global evidence reviews show that jailing is failing and psychological treatment programs in prison do not appear to reduce reincarceration rates. Instead, locking people up increases their risk of further offending.

The system is broken. New approaches, focused on supporting people after they are released from prison, are urgently needed.

A new study involving researchers from Curtin University investigated whether mental health and substance use treatment services impacted reincarceration rates among people released from prisons in Queensland, Australia.

More than half of the people in the study had been diagnosed with a mental illness or a substance use disorder, and 21 per cent had been diagnosed with both. Given under-diagnosis of these conditions, the actual prevalence is likely considerably higher.

Although you might expect that treating substance use and mental health issues would result in better outcomes, we actually found that even after accounting for pre-existing substance use and mental health problems, people who accessed these services after release from prison were more likely to be reincarcerated.

Why did this happen? Did treatment cause people to commit crimes? No. We suspect that those who accessed treatment after release from prison were relapsing to mental health and/or substance use problems, and that the treatment provided was too little, too late.

Consistent with this, the risk of reincarceration was lower for those who accessed services within 30 days of release from prison, than for those whose first service contact was later.

We believe that more intensive support, provided before people were experiencing acute problems, may have yielded more positive outcomes.

Despite the extraordinary cost and ineffectiveness of incarceration, most people released from prisons in Australia do not receive adequate support to help them cope with ongoing mental health and substance use issues.

Community-based services are drastically under-funded, often poorly coordinated, and frequently difficult for people released from prison to access.

Improving outcomes for people released from prison, and reducing their risk of reincarceration, is not just a matter for prison authorities. It requires a whole-of-government approach involving housing, welfare, and health sectors.

So, what can we do to improve outcomes for people released from prison and reduce their chances of going back? Follow the evidence.

Research from Australia and other countries shows that high-quality, accessible, coordinated, evidence-based and culturally appropriate services for people released from prison can simultaneously improve mental health and wellbeing, reduce reoffending, and save taxpayer dollars: a triple dividend.

Release from prison is, for most people, an extremely stressful and challenging time. Many people struggle to find accommodation and secure an income, while struggling to repair damaged relationships and dealing with the stigma of being an ex-prisoner.

Relapse to mental health problems and substance use is common, contributing to both a dramatically elevated risk of premature death, and high rates of reincarceration.

These poor outcomes are not inevitable. To achieve better outcomes we need to invest in community mental health and drug treatment services, at a scale proportionate to need. We need to rigorously evaluate these services, so that we can continue to improve and do what works.

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We need to listen to the people accessing these services - including people released from prison - to understand how we can best support them.

Prisons cost Australian taxpayers $5.8 billion in 2020-21, and new prisons for children and adults are being built around the country. A new approach is needed. Our research suggests that if we get this right, we can not only improve the health of some of the most marginalised people in our communities, we can also reduce crime, and save money.

Building on this work, our research team at Curtin University has recently received further funding from the Australian Institute of Criminology to focus on ways to reduce Indigenous incarceration rates through improving health and well-being after release from prison.

In order to meet our Close the Gap target of reducing the Indigenous incarceration rate by 15 per cent by 2031, we need to start doing things that work. And that requires rigorous, independent research.