THE number of criminals being placed on community-based correction orders is growing faster than the rapidly ballooning prison populations.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed Australia-wide there were 64,997 people serving non-custodial orders in the June quarter - such as bail, parole, community service and post-supervision orders.

It was a 3% increase on the previous three months, and up 12% on the same period last year.

NSW and Victoria had 3% increases, led by only Queensland on 5%.

Those three states accounted for three-quarters of the people in community-based corrections across Australia, with Queensland making up 29%, NSW on 28% and Victoria recording 22%.

Meanwhile, the average daily prison population increased by 2% to reach 36,685 full-time prisoners from the March to June quarters this year, and rose 8% from June 2015.

Sentenced probation accounted for 56% of people on community-based correction orders, followed by parole (20%) and community service orders (15%).

One in five people in community corrections were indigenous, despite representing only about 3% of Australia's population.

The ABS warned overall prison populations and community-based corrections should be considered separately, but presented the new data together to give an overview of the state of corrective services in Australia.

"For the community-based corrections population, offenders may be counted more than once if they have two or more different types of community-based corrections orders operating simultaneously,” the ABS report stated.

ARM NEWSDESK