WA news LIVE: WA prison report reveals overcrowding, repeat offender rates skyrocketing

November 11, 2026 — 10:32am

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WA prison report reveals overcrowding, and repeat offender rates skyrocketing

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WA’s prison watchdog has revealed 18 of the state’s facilities are operating over capacity, with 111 people in custody sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

The Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services 2025/26 annual report, released today, showed there were 7,809 adult males and 888 adult females in prison, nearly half were Aboriginal people.

In youth detention, there were 77 boys and three girls, with the percentage of Aboriginal children even higher than the adult populations, at 69 per cent for young males.

The controversial Unit 18 - a unit in an adult prison for disruptive juveniles - as of June 2026, had no occupants.

It costs around $388 a day, or $141,620 a year to house a prisoner. In juvenile detention it skyrockets to $4,533 a day.

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Across the nation and around the world

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Here’s what’s making headlines across the nation and around the world:

• The Australian Federal Police is calling on parents and teachers to monitor teens for signs they could be on the brink of violence after the force foiled several mass-casualty terror plots, as its counter-terror commander issues an urgent warning about the surge in youth radicalisation.

• First home buyers who used the 5 per cent deposit scheme and work in industries exposed to a softening economy are more likely to be falling behind their mortgage than those in more resilient professions.
• Australians earning less than the minimum wage will lose more than half of their future pay rises to bracket creep, some of Australia’s most prominent economists have warned while calling for an overhaul of the tax system to cover the nation’s growing spending pressures.
• US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth slammed the impeachment proceedings against him as a politically motivated stunt by a disgruntled politician, as he drew comparisons between himself and Donald Trump ahead of a vote in the House of Representatives.

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Today’s weather

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Welcome to our live news blog

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Good morning and welcome to our live news blog for this Wednesday, the 11th of November.

Making headlines today, Perth’s home values have plummeted over the past six months, with new figures revealing it to be the fastest decline in property prices over the past four decades.

According to Cotality, dwelling values across the metropolitan area are now 8.9 per cent below the record high in April – the steepest decline over a comparable period in 40 years. The only capital city to record a steeper decline was Sydney.

Meanwhile, a large brain cyst and multiple strokes suffered by Mark Bombara were unlikely to have caused him to murder a Floreat mother and daughter, despite suspicions raised by his children, an inquest has been told.

Independent neurologist Professor Kevin O’Connor was one of six medical witnesses listed to give evidence at the WA Coroner’s Court yesterday, on the second day of the inquest into the deaths of Bombara and his victims, Jennifer Petelczyc, 59, and her daughter Gretl, 18.

Stay with us as we bring you the news of the day, as it happens in WA.

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