About 80% of the prisoners across Australia tend to suffer from a mental illness, and health advocates have insisted that many of them should not be jailed, and instead kept at a facility.

In their defense, some magistrates from across Australia have now said that a lack of services often means that they have no choice but to send people to jail, despite the fact that proper treatment and assessment in a mental health facility would be a better option.

"Often in terms of working out what is best for this person and for the broader community, magistrates don't have any options but to see this person go into some kind of remand or prison setting where they can be assessed, because the community assessment options are not available", said Crosbie, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Council of Australia.

As has been shared by Jeff Hogg, who is all set to step down as a magistrate in the southern New South Wales city of Griffith, the situation has been his "biggest frustration" throughout his 5 years on the bench.

Mr. Hogg, and many experts have asserted that there is a "desperate need" to send offenders, who require it, to a mental health facility, instead of simply putting them behind bars.