An analysis of trends over the past 20 years shows offenders are spending more time in prison than they were two decades ago, with murder sentences jumping up five years between 2002 and 2020 to an average sentence of 24.5 years.
People found guilty of incest are being put behind bars for an average of nearly 10 years, compared with six years in 2003, according to a Sentencing Advisory Council report.
The shift towards inmates spending more time behind bars goes some way to explaining the surge in Victoria's prison population, council chair Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg said.
"This is almost certainly because courts are responding to a raft of legislative reforms as well as changing community attitudes," he said.
But the bolstered population is largely down to changes in Victoria's bail and parole laws, Prof. Freiberg said.
The state's courts are also more likely to send offenders to jail for serious offences in 2022 than they were two decades ago.
For instance, the imprisonment rate for cultivating a commercial quantity of narcotic plants has risen from 67 per cent in 2003, to almost 100 per cent over the past five years.
"The increase in Victoria's prison population is in no small part because more people are being held on remand and because more people are receiving short prison sentences," the sentencing council's report said.
However, the number of people being sentenced for serious offences in Victoria has declined overall, with serious injury offences dropping from 170 to fewer than 50.
In 2000, 67 in every 100,000 Victorians were in prison. By 2019, that had increased to 123 in every 100,000 Victorians.
