Penal diversity within Australia

© The Author(s) 2015. In this article, we start from internationally developed models explaining growing punitiveness and increasing imprisonment rates, to analyse the penal situation within Australia. While the eight Australian jurisdictions share many of the characteristics that have been identified as being important determinants of the size of the prison population, local features of these societies result in significant differences in punishment. The aim of the article is to describe the main drivers of penal policy in four Australian states (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia). Specific attention will be paid to the situation of Indigenous peoples and the impact of the country’s colonial history. It will be argued that the explanatory models can explain the trend in the Australian imprisonment rates, but not the different levels between these rates.