By Ruth Skilbeck
Last week saw the launch of the landmark Senate Inquiry into 'justice reinvestment' that gives the opportunity for submissions
from the public towards reforming the criminal justice system in Australia.
Australian Research Council government funded-research has shown the criminal
justice system is highly costly, inefficient and severely inequitable towards
Indigenous people including youth, mothers and people with mental health
disorders and cognitive disabilities including brain injury and hearing
disability, a cohort who have been disproportionately represented, and
routinely imprisoned for crimes in the lowest 10% of severity (which includes
debt), in lifetime patterns of recidivism - that are costing the State more
than if the money was reinvested from 'criminal justice' into community health
and wellbeing, aimed to prevent crime.
Current research conducted by international
critical criminologist Professor Eileen Baldry and her team at the University
of New South Wales, in the ARC funded project 'People with mental
health disorders and cognitive disability in the criminal justice system in
NSW' in partnership with Justice Health NSW, Corrective Services NSW, NSW
Housing and NSW Council on Intellectual Disability has revealed sobering
information about how vulnerable people, and Indigenous people are
disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system in New South
Wales.
The research project took a new approach. It
"aimed to create human service and criminal justice life course
histories" that -anonymously- describes individual and group experiences -
by creating "life-courses human service and criminal justice histories."
The researchers tracked the life courses of individuals as they appeared in
official administrative state records. The data was cleansed to preserve
anonymity. The team's research showed that once a young person entered
the juvenile justice system at an early age, of approximately age 15 for
Indigenous youth, that the same person was highly likely to return and reappear
in the criminal justice system records throughout their entire life.
"The pathway analysis is suggesting that many
in this group with complex needs [poor education, homelessness, cognitive
disability, mental health disorder, substance abuse]...may have from an early
age begun cycling in a liminal, marginal physical and personal space connected
with social control agencies."
The research found that, many in these groups with
complex needs "become locked, early in their lives, into cycling
around in a liminal, marginalized community/criminal justice space...a space
that is neither fully in the community or fully in the prison. They do not fall
through cracks, they are directed into the criminal justice conveyor
belt." (Baldry et al, p. 15).
Over the past thirty years numbers in prison have
escalated, and now the Australian government is seeking new solutions.
Justice Reinvestment is a new concept and approach
to preventing crime, and increasing safety in society, that has proven to be
effective in communities in Canada and the US. How it works is by reinvesting
money from the criminal justice system into measures to prevent crime by
investing in the community to prevent young people from entering the juvenile
justice system, and criminal justice system.
Very recently, a new campaign has sprung up to call
for justice reinvestment for Aboriginal young people, to break the cycle of
imprisonment and recidivism and create social change in New South Wales.
The Justice Reinvestment for Aboriginal Young
People Campaign aims to reverse "the shameful over-representation of
Aboriginal young people in the juvenile justice system". The campaign is
based on some sobering facts: 2.2 per cent of NSW population is Aboriginal yet
Aboriginal people make up 50% of the prison population. Aboriginal youth make
up 5% of the NSW prison population and 28 times more likely to be placed in
juvenile detention than non-Indigenous young people.
And this is highly costly in monetary as well as
social terms: to supervise and care for a young person in juvenile detention
costs the State approximately $652 per day, or $237,980 annually (2011
figures).
The Campaign calls for a new approach- by creating
alternatives pathways that are more fulfilling, through education and creative
arts, and community health and wellbeing programs- and through mentoring
support. A new approach of community consultation, based on priorities and
needs, that would benefit everyone in the community regardless of their
involvement in the criminal justice system.
"There are already
some highly effective community leadership and mentoring programs that are
making a real difference by positively engaging Aboriginal young people who are
at risk of offending. These initiatives are not just more cost effective than
locking young people up; they are helping create community cohesion, positive
role models, hope and opportunities for a better future for young people."
The campaign is run by the Sydney-based
Justice Reinvestment for Aboriginal Young People Working Group and already has
some very influential supporters such as the Governor of New South Wales Her
Excellency Professor Marie Bashir, AO CVO; Mr Mick Gooda, Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission;
Dr Tom Calma, National Coordinator of Tackling Aboriginal Smoking; Professor Chris
Cunneen, from The Cairns Institute, at James Cook University and former Chairperson of the
NSW Juvenile Justice Advisory Council, and many more.
The group is calling on the NSW Government to
commit to a justice reinvestment policy and seeks to establish a Justice
Reinvestment Advisory Group that would oversee the changes, the redirection of
resources into community, and monitor the level of Aboriginal young people in
detention over the next 5-10 years.
Around the world governments are trying out new
solutions to mass incarceration, as the old solution, a relic of the colonial
age, has been proven to be unsustainable, and to not work, and now the
Australian government is considering alternatives beginning with the
senate inquiry into "Value of a justice reinvestment approach to criminal
justice in Australia."
© Copyright Ruth Skilbeck December 4, 2012
Baldry, Eileen and Cunneen, Chris (2012) ‘Contemporary Penality in the Shadow of Colonial Patriarchy’ in Coventry, Garry & Shincore, Mandy (Eds.). (2012) Proceedings of the 5th Annual Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference July 7 and 8, 2011. James Cook University, Cairns Campus. Townsville, Queensland: James Cook University. ISBN 978-0-9808572-4-5.
Baldry, Eileen, Dowse, Leanne, Clarence, Melissa (2012) “People with Mental and Cognitive Disabilities: Pathways into Prison.” Background Paper for Outlaws to Inclusion Conference, February 2012
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