Guess who paid the fine? Right then, I knew we were screwed. The justice system was not going to back us as his parents.

Again, when he faced a magistrate as an adult, he said to me "what would like us to do with your son today?"

I again said rehab, and he again said, "sorry sir, but we can’t do that against his will. But if you go surety for him today, we can release him to you today."

I asked why, and he said it was because I was his legal guardian. I was floored.

Right now, the only way currently to get my son fixed is to have him arrested. He is currently sitting in remand.

And I believe spending $187 million on the expansion of a prison is wrong.

When Corrections Minister Fran Logan announced Casuarina Prison would be expanded to be one of Australia's biggest prisons on Sunday, judging by the reactions on Facebook, the overwhelming call was for more rehabilitation and fewer prisons.

If Mark McGowan thought if he was going to get a positive reaction from the public, he was wrong – so let's address the elephant in the room.

It's my belief that money should be spent on rehabilitation and social services to stop people from going to prison and getting a legal record in the first place.

WA currently spends $27 million dollars on methamphetamine per week. 

Now, to break that down to see what sort of problem we have the figures look like this:

At $27,000,000 per week, that’s $50,000 per kilogram. That equals to about 54kgs.

So, at one dose per week, that’s 100,000 people spending their money on drugs. At two doses per week that’s 50,000 people. At three doses per week that’s 25,000 people.

Meanwhile, the cost of a rehab bed can be anywhere between $5000 to $30,000, depending on the length of stay.

There's no guarantees it will work, and without the required laws to enforce proper rehabilitation, patients who know the system can get themselves released at any stage.

My family has experienced this on many occasions. The effort to get a loved one to the point of rehab, only for them to refuse at the last moment, is heartbreaking.

I’m sure you get the picture by now. Perth families are crying out to save their loved ones that have problematic drug use, but are either stopped by the cost or by the lack of rehabilitation beds.

So about Sunday's announcement. It's being spruiked as a means to halt overcrowding in WA's prisons, but once again we're ignoring why the prison system is so overcrowded in the first place.

By the government’s own statistics, anywhere between one in three to one in four will return to prison within 18 months. So what are we paying around $120,000 per year per person for?

Mr McGowan must know he will not arrest his way out of this situation, but must turn to funding a rehabilitation system that will help to provide the best outcomes.

To date, drug rehabilitation is one of the most underfunded part of our health system, yet is so important in creating a safer community.

People may ask how we will fund this, but police and health workers spend hours of their day with problematic drug users. You only have to look at these sectors to know where costs could be saved.

Most other modern countries are reducing their prison populations and taking on rehabilitation, but we still use it to hide the real, too-tough-to-deal-with problems.

Murray Kinnane is a Perth father who has campaigned for an overhaul of how the WA judicial system treats drug addicts.