Nearly half of Tasmania's released prisoners are locked up again within two years

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This year's Productivity Commission report found 47 per cent of Tasmania's prisoners land back behind bars within two years of release.

The figure is up from 39 per cent five years ago, and is the biggest jump in re-offending of any jurisdiction in the country.

Criminal Court judge and Professor of Penology and Penitentiary Law at the University of Groningen, Sanne Struijk, has tracked the rapid decline of incarceration rates in the Netherlands, which has led to 19 prisons closing over the past few years.