A Curtin University-led research project to improve the mental health and wellbeing of adults released from prisons in Australia has been awarded $5 million in funding from the Federal Government's Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
The collaborative project, led by Professor Stuart Kinner from Curtin University, will engage a national consortium of service providers and people with lived experience of incarceration to co-design, evaluate and implement a model of transitional care that aims to improve the mental health and wellbeing of adults released from Australian prisons.
Professor Kinner, Head of the Justice Health Group in the Curtin enAble Institute, said the model would be informed by the best available evidence and evaluated in a randomised controlled trial over a five-year period in Queensland, Australia.
"This project has the potential to meaningfully improve the mental health and wellbeing of the almost 70,000 adults, including more than 26,000 Indigenous people, released from Australian prisons each year," Professor Kinner said.
"We know that Australia's prison population is growing at a faster rate than population growth, with more than 67,000 people being incarcerated every year, nationally. We need to act now to break this cycle and improve the outcomes for these individuals.
"In this project we will work with partners nationally to co-design a culturally safe, age and gender responsive model of transitional care, and then rigorously evaluate this model in a randomised controlled trial to test its utility in real-world settings. The team will then work in partnership with service providers and people with lived experience to adapt this model for potential national implementation."
Professor Kinner said Australian taxpayers spend more than $6 billion on corrective services each year, despite evidence that prisons often increase the risk of offending and lead to very poor health outcomes for some of our most vulnerable community members.
"People who experience incarceration have a high prevalence of complex, co-occurring health problems, high rates of self-harm, injecting drug use, nonfatal overdose and injury, high rates of emergency department presentation and hospitalisation, and remarkably low rates of contact with mental healthcare providers after release from prison," Professor Kinner said.
"Improving the health of people who experience incarceration therefore has the potential to save the taxpayer money, improve public health, reduce reoffending, and help to Close the Gap in Indigenous disadvantage.
"We have a national commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of all Indigenous Australians, including those who experience incarceration. We also have a target to reduce the Indigenous incarceration rate by at least 15 per cent by 2031. Improved transitional care for Indigenous people returning from prison to the community is required to achieve these targets."
Curtin University Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Professor Melinda Fitzgerald congratulated the team on receiving important funding for research that will help to improve outcomes for a vulnerable cohort of Australia's population.
"This investment will enable our researchers to conduct important research that can then be implemented and trialled in real-world settings," Professor Fitzgerald said.
"The outcomes of this project will have an important impact on people being released from prison in Australia and the follow-up care they receive to improve their outcomes when transitioning back into the community." Further information on the MRFF is available online here.
