Human rights crisis over mandatory detention
Dr Jude McCulloch, Lecturer in Police Studies at Deakin University, casts a critical eye over the promise of "diversion" programs in the Northern Territory as a response to
the human rights crisis over mandatory detention laws. (This article appeared in Australian Children's Rights News No. 25)
The deal Prime Minister John Howard and the Northern Territory Chief Minister Denis Burke have stitched up on mandatory sentencing is cheap con job designed to divert
our attention from the disgraceful and tragic incarceration of people for minor property offences.
Diversion, especially of the young and vulnerable, from the formal processes of the criminal justice system is generally to be applauded. In the social context of the Northern Territory and mandatory
sentencing, however, it is only window dressing. It will do nothing to intervene in the cycle of poverty, despair, discrimination, offending and unduly harsh punishment that is creating a new
incarcerated generation amongst Indigenous Australians and locking the young and marginal into lifestyles that include routine imprisonment. Diversion gives greater discretion to the police, although
study after study has shown that discretion is used by police as a vehicle for discrimination against Indigenous people.
The news from community services in the Northern Territory is that they are totally overwhelmed by demand for accommodation, counselling, support, and material aid that they cannot meet. As a
consequence victims of family violence, children subject to physical and sexual abuse and neglect, people with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities, and those dealing with substance abuse and
addiction are too often left completely without income, housing or support. This is the context in which most minor property offences occur. The juveniles and indeed many of the adults before the
courts are themselves victims of very serious crimes, like sexual assaults which have never been acknowledged or dealt with by the authorities.
The Prime Minister has promised the Northern Territory $5m to set up diversion schemes so that young people can be sent to a range of support programs rather than to court and prison. Given the
appalling inadequate community supports and programs currently available in the Territory this means that the only way many young people will be able to access services is to offend. Even worse it means that individuals and whole communities will have to accept a definition of themselves as criminal before they can get access to basic services which are in truth human rights.
There is a need for diversion in the Northern Territory. Funds need to be diverted from punitive programs based on hate, fear and divisiveness into social programs based on compassion, healing and
true justice. It costs approximately $60,000 a year to keep a person in prison. Leaders in the Territory have been willing to spend this type of money on jailing people for minor property offences
involving the theft of food and water valued at no more than a couple of dollars. Yet, they have not been able to find the funds to provide basic subsistence support like food and housing or
appropriate counselling services for children who have been hurt, abused and neglected, and others needing a helping hand just to survive. Money diverted into these type of programs would assist in
addressing the causes of offending and would acknowledge— like any decent society would— that the vulnerable need to be helped not punished and stigmatised as criminals.
The problems in the Territory are problems which should be addressed by the Commonwealth. Offences committed by Indigenous people need to be seen in the context of the deeply wounding and ongoing
consequences of dispossession, the stolen generation and discriminatory policing, all of which were fully documented in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Inadequate or
inaccessable social security payments and lack of public housing also play a part in offending.
The Indigenous and marginal residents of the Territory need support programs; not because they are criminals but because justice demands it. It would be a good start if the Prime Minister released the
$50m of the $63m promised but still not spent on programs to help heal the stolen generation.
Most importantly we as a community need not to be diverted from the core issue: mandatory sentencing is fundamentally wrong and if the Territory won't repeal its offensive legislation then the
commonwealth must intervene.
Dr Jude McCulloch is a lecturer in Police Studies at Deakin University
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