Yes. That's the biggest problem, I think. Much of it involves playing for votes. I'm not taking a shot at any government in particular, but that's part of it.
The other part is that these community courts and such things are very costly on the front end. As you said, though, in the long term they save millions of dollars and people's lives are changed for the better, because you reduce the likelihood of people being victims in the future and of people being on income support and things like that.
Historically, this government, and the previous government especially, just looked at the short term: what is going to cost us the least amount of money? For them, it was easier to throw people in jail than to create innovative courts that deal with people properly.