Stronger Law Enforcement Contributes to Prison Population Being the Highest Ever in NSW

The New South Wales adult prisoner population has risen to its highest numbers ever seen, with 14,070 inmates in this state’s correctional facilities in March 2026. This is due to a particularly stark surge in those sent to prison over four months of last summer, which was driven by increased arrests being made by NSW police, and First Nations people are again bearing the brunt of such actions.

The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research announced the disappointing milestone on 14 May 2026, and BOCSAR explained that it’s been achieved by a “rapid rise of 1,064 inmates between November 2025 and March 2026, and the extra numbers are largely remandees, or those being denied bail after charging and are awaiting their trial and potential conviction and sentencing.

“We’re looking at an extraordinarily sharp rise in the prison population over a relatively short period,” said BOCSAR executive director Jackie Fitzgerald.

“What we are seeing is increased police activity and stronger enforcement resulting in more people entering the justice system. Rather than a change in crime rates, higher charging levels are driving higher remand numbers, particularly for domestic violence.”

Almost half the entire adult prisoner population are now on remand, Fitzgerald further explained, which reflected a dramatic rise in people being denied bail over domestic and family violence matters primarily, which was accompanied by less distinct rises in those being denied bail in respect of sexual offences, nondomestic violence assaults and weapons-related crimes.

The Minns government has earnt itself a reputation as being a law-and-order focused administration, and given that crime in general is not on the rise in the community, but the spike rather reflects a shift in law enforcement, whereby the NSW Police Force is more inclined to arrest and charge people and then deny them bail, NSW Labor might soon be launching a prison drive.

An inexplicable rise in prisoner numbers

“Increases in police charges of this magnitude place pressure on every part of the justice system, from courts and legal services through to prisons,” Fitzgerald explained. “If current charge volumes persist, this will continue to drive growth in custody numbers and may bring forward the timeline for when additional prison capacity is required.”

In March this year, there were 7,420 convicted prisoners in the NSW corrections system, whereas the number of inmates on remand, or not yet convicted or sentenced, comprised of 6,650 adults. So, 45 percent of those now in NSW prisons have not had their matters finalised. And some of these remandees will be found not guilty and be released after having needlessly spent time in prison.

The number of civilians that were arrested and charged by police over the four months to March 2026 was close to 62,000 people, which is a 13 percent increase compared with the same period the year prior. But there has not been any policy announcement that presaged such a stark rise within a four-month period, which marked a larger hike than over the previous four years.

And the most recent crimes statistics released by BOCSAR, which reflect the December 2025 quarter, revealed that of the 13 major crime categories, seven of them had been trending downwards, while four remained stable and only two categories were on the rise, and they were in respect of sexual offences and shoplifting.

“Domestic violence incidents coming to police attention are increasingly likely to result in a charge,” Fitzgerald further elaborated on this shift in the nature of policing. “Over the past year, the proportion of DV assaults leading to legal action within 30 days increased from 66 percent to 74 percent, bringing more people before the courts and into custody.”

The ongoing overincarceration of First Nations people

Of the 14,070 adult inmates in the NSW prison system in the March quarter, 4,834 were First Nations persons. This is the largest number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ever locked away in this state’s correctional system. Their numbers account for 34 percent of the NSW adult prisoner population, however First Peoples only account for 3.7 percent of the state’s entire populace.

The number of Aboriginal people incarcerated over the monthslong surge in prison numbers was 435, meaning the rate of Indigenous adults in the state’s prisons rose by 10 percent over that four-month period.

“Imprisonment of Aboriginal people in NSW has reached yet another all-time high,” the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT said in a statement. “The number of people in NSW prisons has grown more in the past four months than in the past four years. In that time, the number of Aboriginal adults behind bars has increased by a staggering 10 percent.”

The NSW Police Force overpolicies the state’s Aboriginal peoples: this is well-known. And the attitude that police in general have towards First Peoples leads them to be more likely to be approached by officers and arrested, even in discretionary circumstances, where a caution is possible.

The Redfern Legal Centre released statistics last year revealing that in respect of the 28,826 incidents involving NSW police officers using force against members of the public over the four years to 2021-22, 45 percent of those occasions saw this force being applied against First Peoples, which speaks volumes when again considering the less than 4 percent of the overall populace they comprise.

“This monumental increase is driven entirely by a surge in unproven police charges, and almost half of people in prison haven’t been found guilty of a crime – they’re still waiting for their case to be heard in court,” the Aboriginal Legal Service stressed. “This is unjust and unsustainable, and yet another example of the NSW government turning its back on closing the gap.”

An attitudinal change

One clear development occurred just prior to the stark rise in arrests over the four months to March 2026 and that is that Mal Lanyon was appointed to the position of NSW police commissioner on 1 October 2025. And when the state announced his appointment, it noted that NSW had been having issues with “recruitment and retention, youth crime, organised crime and domestic violence”.

Lanyon, a four-decade veteran of the NSW Police Force, had, before taking on the role of top cop, “led major crime-fighting commands targeting gangs, firearms and organised crime”, “overseen the state’s metropolitan policing operations” and was “responsible for thousands of frontline officers” and “established Operation Amarok to target high-risk DV offenders.”

In terms of police recruits, the NSW government announced on 1 May that 349 new probationary constables had just graduated from the Goulburn Police Academy and were entering the force. This was the largest class to have graduated in 13 years. And prior to this announcement, there had long been reports about recruiting issues and vacant officer positions going back to the early 2020s.

Another clear change in the attitude of the state in terms of law enforcement occurred on 9 February 2026, when 20,000 protesters rallying against the official visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog gathered on Gadigal land at Sydney Town Hall at the same time that the police commissioner had declared a ban on street marches in the Sydney CBD under a since-struck-down antiprotest law.

The crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters stood their ground and would not leave the vicinity after they’re stationary rally had finished, as they sought to march to NSW parliament, as they considered it to be their right to do so, and according to the NSW Supreme Court, they were correct, as it went on to rule the law allowing for the ban on protest marches was unconstitutional two months later.

However, what occurred when protesters stood their ground was unprecedented, as the NSW Police Force unleashed a coordinated operation whereby the 3,000 officers on duty kettled in different sections of the crowd and then unleashed upon them with brute force and the liberal use of pepper spray. Constituents were punched, tackled and pushed over, and several people were hospitalised.

The NSW government and the NSW Police Force have refused to apologise for this obviously illegal behaviour by state law enforcement, and they’ve instead repeatedly stated that NSW police officers were correct in their actions, as they did as they’d been asked when setting upon the public with unbridled violence.

So, when coupling this unprecedented and unapologetic brutalisation of the public by the NSW police, with the rising number of police officers about to be out on the beat and the just released BOCSAR prison custody figures, it seems very likely that the recent surge in civilians being arrested, charged and held on remand is ongoing and is only set to get worse.