Start inside
Where corrections partners allow it, sessions begin before release, so the first familiar face on the outside is already in your corner.
Who we help / People in and leaving prison
Custody and release
The hardest round starts at the gate.
Almost everyone in prison comes home. What happens in the first weeks and months after release decides whether they stay home. Through The Ropes wants to be in that corner: before release, at the gate and after it.
By the numbers
Who is in prison in Australia.
- 46,998adults were in prison in Australia on 30 June 2025Source: ABS, Prisoners in Australia, 2025 (30 June 2025)
- 60%of them had been in prison beforeSource: ABS, Prisoners in Australia, 2025 (30 June 2025)
- 44.5%of people released from a sentence in 2022-23 were back in prison within two yearsSource: Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2026, Part C Justice
- $326a day: the average cost of keeping one person in prison (2024-25)Source: Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2026, Corrective services
The picture
A cycle that can be broken.
Behind the numbers
Release is a cliff edge.
Most people in prison grew up with less: less schooling, less work and less stability. The 2025 national prison health survey found that 53% of people entering prison had been unemployed in the month before, and 21% had a parent or carer who had been in prison during their childhood.
Release is when things are most fragile. A third of people leaving prison expected to be homeless, and 72% had no paid work organised. Without a home, a job or people around them, the old routine is the easiest one to fall back into.
The cost of the cycle is human first, and financial too: on the Productivity Commission's figures, one year in prison costs around $119,000 per person in operating costs alone.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up 37% of people in prison, the result of a long history and of systems that are still being reformed. See our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander page.
How Through The Ropes can help
A corner on both sides of the wall.
A crew on day one
Leaving prison can be lonely. The cohort and a postcode-matched mentor give you people who notice if you don't show up.
Structure that fills the day
Three sessions a week, set times, small goals. A routine that crowds out the old one.
A next step after week ten
Graduates are supported towards work, training, sport or community, alongside parole, housing and employment services, never instead of them.
Potential for impact
What the evidence says.
- Structured sport programmes and crime. A 2023 meta-analysis found sport programmes for prevention and rehabilitation had a moderate effect on offending, and a large effect on self-esteem and wellbeing. But simply playing sport is not linked with less offending: it's the structure, mentoring and support around the sport that count.Source: Jugl, Bender and Losel (2023), Do sports programs prevent crime and reduce reoffending? Journal of Quantitative Criminology
- Sport in prisons. An independent review for the UK Ministry of Justice found well-run sport in prisons supports wellbeing, behaviour and links to work and community after release, while noting most programmes have not been rigorously tested.Source: Meek (2018), A Sporting Chance: an independent review of sport in justice, UK Ministry of Justice
- Mentoring helps, modestly. A review of 70 studies covering more than 25,000 young people found mentoring programmes had a positive effect on behaviour, wellbeing and schooling. The authors urge everyone to be realistic: the average gain is modest, and quality and length of the relationship matter.Source: Raposa et al. (2019), The Effects of Youth Mentoring Programs: A Meta-analysis, Journal of Youth and Adolescence
- An illustration, not a promise. If one cohort of twelve helped just two people stay out of prison for a year, that would avoid roughly $238,000 in prison running costs, on the Productivity Commission's average of $326.43 a day.Source: Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2026, Corrective services
Honest about what we know. Through The Ropes is new, and no programme can promise to stop reoffending on its own. The research says sport works best as a hook into wider support (mentoring, housing, work), which is how we have designed it. Every partnership in custody depends on the corrections authority agreeing.
What we will measure with every cohort, and publish:
- Who starts, who finishes, and why people leave early
- Wellbeing and mood at week 1, week 10 and three months later, using a standard validated scale
- Fitness and attendance: sessions completed out of thirty
- Next steps at three and six months: work, study, training, sport, housing
- Return to prison at 12 months, where partners can share it with consent
Work in corrections or reintegration?
Refer someone who is due for release, or talk to us about a cohort for the people you work with.
Sources
- ABS, Prisoners in Australia, 2025 (30 June 2025)
- Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2026, Part C Justice
- Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2026, Corrective services
- AIHW, Health of people in Australia's prisons 2025: summary
- AIHW, Health of people in Australia's prisons 2025: employment
- AIHW, Health of people in Australia's prisons 2025: socioeconomic factors
- Jugl, Bender and Losel (2023), Do sports programs prevent crime and reduce reoffending? Journal of Quantitative Criminology
- Meek (2018), A Sporting Chance: an independent review of sport in justice, UK Ministry of Justice
- Raposa et al. (2019), The Effects of Youth Mentoring Programs: A Meta-analysis, Journal of Youth and Adolescence
Figures are the latest published at the time of writing (October 2026). Back to Who we help.