by ray jackson, president, indigenous social justice association
people of colour living in predominately white anglo-saxon countries will
most certainly not be surprised by an extensive study done by the
guardian newspaper of the racism embedded within the english court systems
when sending people to gaol. studies throughout the world have clearly
shown that white offenders receive either community services or shorter
gaol sentences when compared to the treatment given to people of colour.
they receive lesser community services and longer sentences, seemingly as
a matter of course.
the best example of the biased and racist systems in operation are, of
course the united states followed by europe, england, australia and
aotearoa. this system has been in place since the times of invasion and
colonisation. several studies into the sentencing practices of the
australian court system shows the same trends if not the same numbers.
according to the australian bureau of statistics the national gaol
population, adult men and women, was nearing 29 000 as of june 30 this
year. the number of aborigines and torres strait islanders given by the
same abs statistics show that there were 6 997 males and 624 females.
those figures equate to 26% of the national gaol population even though we
make up only 2% of the total australian population. whilst the abs did not
give the figures for aboriginal youth, both male and female, it is
believed that our youth make up to 60% of the national juvenile population
incarcerated.
the good professor once constantly asked, "why is this so?" and we need to
also ask, "what can we do about it?"
are aborigines born to be more inclined to a life of crime? of course not.
no more than the non-aboriginal citizens of this country. the tired old
argument that some individuals or races are born criminals is far from
being proved by any reliable and non-racist study, despite what the kkk,
skinheads, among others bleat out from time to time. so we can discount
that exercise.
are aborigines nurtured and raised in an environment that is far from
conducive to a successful life. mostly yes, i would say. added to this
factor is a lack of education, high unemployment rates, mostly living in
poverty in fractured families, self or family abuse of drugs and/or
alcohol, mental health issues to name but a few. all of this and more
detracts from what should be considered a decent and reasonable quality of
life. of course, all society suffers to some extent all or some of these
social ills but for aborigines we must also look at other causes,
including historical causes. what i consider to be the 'underlying causes'
that the royal commissioners also paid great heed to.
it is of little use for governments and others to decry our parlous
situation by continually reminding us that we have a strong and urgent
need "to get over it" and join them, by assimilation, to a world whereby
we would become second-class citizens instead of our current third-class
status. as i continue to inform people, you cannot just obliterate 60 000+
years of living history and culture with an invasion culture of just 225
years next january. it just does not compute!
recognising the invasion surely then allows others to also recognise what
our ancestors have lost. we suffered genocide, theft of our lands and
resources, (our water, forests, bush tucker, etc.) then we lost our way of
life, then our status as human beings, then our children from their
families, then our wages but the most important thing that was taken from
us was our innate right to have and maintain the respect for our elders,
families and clans and our communities. we became the shadow people of the
wind. absolutely no rights except for what the governments would allow us
to have.
i am a forceful advocate for the principle of collective trauma. we have
that in spades. we are fed trauma through our mothers milk and generation
after generation have lived and passed on that trauma to the next
generation. it is cancerous to our well-being and it is still being
force-fed to us to the present day by governments who continue to ignore
our human rights and our innate sense of worth. what respect can a child,
a youth have for his elders, family or community when he is constantly
reinforced by governments that his people have no power, no rights and the
respect of none. that their day-to-day lives can be fully controlled by a
government whim. or for the lust of taking aboriginal land back from the
traditional owners. the nt invasion into some 63 communities proves this
to be so.
there is, however, another historical factor that has brought us to the
lowest point possible in our collective lives and that, without argument,
is the british/australian legal and custodial systems that are forced upon
us daily. this fact was strongly endorsed by the royal commissioners when
addressing their recommendations.
when the first european boat-people arrived in 1778 whilst it could be
said that they were not all that welcomed by the gadigal clans they were
at least allowed to stay for what was thought to be only a short time.
during one extreme time they were kept alive by the generosity of the
locals. they were repaid of course by sickness and death and the stealing
of the traditional lands by the troopers - the rum corp - after arthur
phillip returned to england somewhat the worse for wear thanks to the said
troopers.
the lands were cleared by the troopers going on hunts and i do not mean
for kangaroo! over time the sydney lands were cleared and the remaining
aborigines were herded into blacktown, in dharrug territory, now a sydney
suburb after they were moved on. the troopers had very much a frontier
mentality and encouraged others to have one also. slowly but surely the
lands were cleared by massacres or move-ons that was encouraged. this
ethos spread over the whole country. but still we survived.
the troopers, also over time, morphed into the colonial constabulary but
still with the same original aim of keeping our mobs down or out. the
modern police forces of this country still have that racist and genocidal
view today. for 225 years we have always been in their sights. we have
been arrested, bashed and/or killed by them with impunity, an impunity
that is as strong today as it was on the frontiers. in fact, for my
people, we live on those frontiers still regardless of where we reside.
now that impunity that the police have has been totally reinforced over
many many years not only by governments but also by the court systems that
mostly still believes that cops do not tell lies, cops do not manufacture
evidence and confessions, that police do not wantonly kill, and the list
goes on. wether or not the commissioners also believed this or not is not
known except for those death in custody cases where several of the
commissioners expressed frustration at some police evidence. be that as it
may they did come up with 99 good recommendations for the police to adopt
and follow. history and over 400+ deaths in custody, including gaols and
jj centres, plainly show they did not accept the recommendations. that the
australian police forces have too many powers that are protected goes
without saying. that must change and one way to make a positive change is
to have governments appoint citizens boards to monitor police roles and
activities. we need to do battle with the police unions to bring this
about. another positive change is to deny self-investigation into criminal
acts by police such as a death in custody event.
to the best of my knowledge it took an aboriginal magistrate, ms. pat
o'shane, to take the cops on and their ridiculous and outlandish claims to
prove the guilt of a detainee. she has carried on doing her legal duty to
find truth over police lies and, happily, this practice has spread to some
others. but not enough. we still have too many 'police courts' and this
includes the coronial court system. the commissioners also listed 29
recommendations to make the court system more user friendly.
whilst we are 26% of the national gaol population it is of little use to
rail against them for the numbers in gaol. if the police are the mouth and
the courts are the stomach then it is of no use blaming the rectum for
what comes out of it. the gaols have no choice in the matter as they must
obey the government laws and the court decisions. they are, of course,
responsible for what goes on in their gaols but not for the causes that
continues to fill the gaols up.
the abs stats show that nsw gaols have 2 270 adult aboriginal men and
women in their gaols out of a total of 10 000+. nsw statistics are
extremely difficult to obtain so exact numbers of inmates remain very
hazy. we do know, roughly, that aboriginal male rates are around 21% of
the male gaol population whilst for aboriginal women it is nearer to 28%
for the female population. for aboriginal juveniles it is between 50% to
60% of the juveniles incarcerated. gaol statistics should be public
knowledge as it is our taxes that pay for the failed system but
commissioner ron woodham, and i assume the minister, greg smith, agrees
with him,thinks otherwise.
since the election of the barry o'farrell government there are rumblings
within the misnamed corrective services that major changes are on foot.
commissioner ron woodham, who is only doing minister's smith bidding, has
stated that there is a need to shut down some 650 beds. to allow this to
be done the parramatta, berrima and kirkconnel gaols will be shut down and
mothballed. the reason this can be done, says woodham, is that nsw gaol
numbers have decreased. i cannot locate nor have i seen any information
that this has any truth to it and i am strongly of the opinion that the
nsw public are being told an untruth. i have several reasons for believing
the statement of less numbers are false.
surely if the gaol numbers had made "a significant drop", as described by
woodham, then he and the government would be on every radio show of the
'verbal vomit' variety and tv shouting how 'they' were reducing the crime
that labor could not. instead there is a deafening silence as to the
numbers. recidivism remains around the 45% mark so i see nothing to crow
about. on friday evening i had the opportunity to raise this matter with
two gaol chaplains and neither had the view that there had been a
reduction, small or significant. to them it was business as usual.
what was raised is the understanding by them that the new nowra gaol is
yet to be filled and work is nearing completion of a new additional
complex at cessnock that will house 350 inmates. that number could be
doubled to 700 should the need arise by doubling up the cells. now we have
plenty of room says ron. the three gaols to be shut down would consist of
250, possibly 300 beds. these inmates could quite satisfactorily be
absorbed into nowra or cessnock quite easily. also by loading up cessnock
it becomes a better target for privatisation. cessnock had been previously
identified to be made private but was saved merely to allow it to become a
better bid.
other gaols that have been identified for privatisation are grafton,
wellington, goulburn, lithgow, kempsy, bathurst, john moroney 1 and 2 at
windsor, st. helliers at muswellbrook and last but perhaps not least,
cessnock. all 9 gaols will become gaols for profit and not for
rehabilitation. i am very much against private gaols. at the moment nsw
only has two, one at junee that began its life as a private gaol and
recently parklea was privatised. private gaols prefer to keep their gaols
full, the better for profit, so gaol numbers will only increase in the
future to pay for this horrible practice of prisoners for profit. no
women's gaols are targeted but of course that could easily change.
there is also a government call to make up to 400 officers, including
transport officers, to be made redundant. private gaols work with far less
staff and officers and are paid at a lower rate for a more stressful and
dangerous position. this only reacts upon the inmates that are worked and
locked down when they are not.
whilst the smith/woodham plans are a great step backwards in penology, we
at least now know where the dollars for the much heralded but still to be
proven justice re-investment are coming from. blood money from the private
sector. the minister, when asked where the money was to come from to do
the jr programs, just would not answer. now we know why.
now that we do know why leads us however to still more important questions
to greg. how is the jr dollars to be invested and where? will the bulk of
the dollars go to the private or public gaols? junee and parklea still
come under the control and scrutiny of the commissioner, will this
practice continue? if not, why not?
i believe that some jr dollars must be aimed squarely at getting the
racism and discrimination against aborigines, torres strait islanders and
other people of colour out of the police and court systems. one way to
make this happen is for all nsw parliamentarians, departmental officers,
police, magistrates and judges to be given full and vigorous cross
cultural awareness training. this could only improve, to some level, the
current disaster that is our current racist and discriminatory legal and
custodial systems. such benefits would also flow onto other people of
colour also.
we must continue to fight against these regressive moves by the o'farrell
government. inmates, as justice michael kirby recently stated, have rights
that we who are not in gaol must continue to fight for. private gaols,
private detention centres for asylum seekers and refugees and private
custodial transport systems just don't work for all those involved.
prisoners for profit is a process we can well do without.
contact greg smith at office@smith.minister.nsw.gov.au and let him know
that we want the gaols we pay for, all of them, kept in public hands.
fkj
isja01@internode.on.net
(m) 0450 651 063
(p) 02 9318 0947
address 1303/200 pitt street waterloo 2017
we live and work on the stolen lands of the gadigal people.
sovereignty treaty social justice