Gerry Georgatos explores the reasons behind Australia's devastatingly high Indigenous imprisonment rate.. AS A PREDOMINATELY experiential researcher and journeyer to homeland communities, and having worked for more than two decades alongside the incarcerated, homeless and suicide affected, I have looked at the national prison population numbers during the last two decades, … This crisis is especially profound in the youth context. The increase is most alarming in New South Wales and South Australia. The yellow line indicates the percentage of Aboriginal people in the state's population (right axis) . It is almost negligible the number of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders who are incarcerated who were living above the poverty line. Gerry Georgatos is a suicide prevention researcher and restorative justice and prison reform expert with the Institute of Social Justice and Human Rights. Tackle causes of incarceration now or see Indigenous people make up majority of inmates by 2025 "What is little known is that one in nine of Aboriginal … Gerry Georgatos explores the reasons behind Australia's devastatingly high Indigenous imprisonment rate. Reasons for high Indigenous imprisonment rates Introduction. In it, he observes, the Canada of the first of half of the 20th century would be hard to recognize today. The total Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in Australia aged 18 years and over in 2018 was approximately 2% (based on Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. Let us better understand how many First Nations people have been to gaol. The high rate of incarceration for Aboriginal peoples has been linked to systemic discrimination and attitudes based on racial or cultural prejudice, as well as economic and social disadvantage, substance abuse and intergenerational loss, violence and trauma. Aboriginal women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of family violence than non-Aboriginal women. Our report contributes new economic modelling to the evidence base. Of Aboriginal people aged 19 to 20 years who have been to prison, more than 60% reoffend. In the very least, prisons should be restorative and places of hope, heavily invested in healing and wellbeing programs and, from there, onward with education opportunities. Australia should start spending billions of dollars, long overdue, on ending disadvantage, particularly extreme poverty and on equality. As a society, we should be doing everything possible to keep people out of prison and not everything we can to gaol people, but where prison is the outcome, then everything must be done to help the people within them. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration report sets stark challenge Wednesday, 28 March 2018. Support IA. Nearly 100% of the children removed by child protection authorities, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and of Australian children in general, lived below the poverty line. The Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework explicitly recognises that the contemporary social and economic circumstances of Aboriginal people are inextricably linked to ongoing and previous generations’ experiences of European colonisation. If we are to understand the enormity of what I believe is a humanitarian crisis with far reaching generational implications, we need to understand the following. Newsletters may offer personalized content or advertisements. The increase is most alarming in New South Wales and South Australia. But we need your help. While the incarceration rate has increased across the board in the last 20 years, the Aboriginal incarceration rate has skyrocketed. There is a lot of talk once again about reducing incarceration rates, about reducing disparities, about targets and generational change. There is an overall poor investment in education and wellbeing programs in our prisons, and the unmet needs outstrip supply. Society should gear our governments to do as much as they can to reduce poverty, but when people finish up in gaol it should be a reformative, redemptive and transformational experience. (both Aboriginal and Maori) inmates was exhibited in the Victorian prison system in the later part of the 19080s. Join the IA newsletter for regular updates on our latest news stories. Sentenced prisoners increased by 2% from 276 to 281, and unsentenced prisoners decreased by 13% (24) to 166. The rate has increased 25 per cent for non-Aboriginal people. Contractor’s ‘Hope Stoves’ Help Homeless People Cook, Stay Warm, Winners And Losers: What A Biden Presidency Means For Canada’s Economy, How To Open A Stubborn Produce Bag, The Pandemic-Safe Way, Saskatoon Man Uses The Cold To Show How Effective Face Masks Can Be, One Of These Great Canadians Will Be The Face Of The New $5 Bill. [ learn more ]. Therefore one in 50 Australians have been to prison. However, of the 500,000, more than 100,000 are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders — First Nations persons. But denying the facts doesn't make them disappear. They end up serving more time. In the June 2017 quarter 91% of young Indigenous young people were in detention compared with 76% for non-Indigenous youth. Among these are poor social conditions, including lack of literacy and English language skills, health problems, poverty and unemployment. Curfew Starting This Weekend, Vacationers Won’t Have Access To New $1K Sick-Leave Benefit: Trudeau, The COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Plans For Every Province And Territory, Watch: The Most Doug Ford Moments Of 2020, Our Great Canadian Guide To Buying Local For 2020, B.C. Since the release of his report, Mr. Sapers has expressed concern that his calls for action are falling on deaf ears. In 2016, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people constituted just 2% of the Australian adult population but comprised more than one quarter (27%) of the national adult prison population. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than 80% of the national prison population has not completed secondary schooling, while nearly 100% of the national prison population comprising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders has not completed secondary schooling. The shocking truth of Australia's Indigenous incarcerated, The problem of Australia's Indigenous people behind bars needs to be addressed immediately (Image via twitter.com/Mediacoachasia), Power can be taken back by exposing our oppressors, Australia must build 150,000 public rental homes and end all forms of homelessness. AS A PREDOMINATELY experiential researcher and journeyer to homeland communities, and having worked for more than two decades alongside the incarcerated, homeless and suicide affected, I have looked at the national prison population numbers during the last two decades, and disaggregated an estimated minimum 100,000 of First Nations people having been to prison. A new report into the distressing and disproportionate rates of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians sets governments a stark … Incarceration of youth generally across Canada has declined slightly each year since 2012. Personally, I find it shocking that close to one in four inmates in the federal correctional system is an Aboriginal person. One in five Western Australian and Northern Territorian Aboriginal peoples have been to prison. The choice has been made to remove children at devastating rates rather than to invest everything possible into lifting their families out of poverty. Reasons for high Indigenous imprisonment rates Introduction. When it comes to deaths in custody, we know the tragic toll, but in the first year following release, all the research shows that former inmates are up to 10 times more likely to suicide, or die an unnatural death, engage in risk-taking behaviour and substance abuse than at any time while in prison. The condition of female Aboriginal inmates with mental illness is of particular concern. More than 30% of inmates in Canadian prisons are Indigenous – even though aboriginal people make up just 5% of the country’s population, according … He said the following: Aboriginal people are both over- and under-policed. Support IA. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners accounted for just over a quarter (28%) of the total Australian prisoner population. They are twice as likely as male offenders to have a significant mental health diagnosis at time of admission, and they are far more likely than males to self-harm in prison. Prisoners with prior adult imprisonment decreased by 5% (18) to 349. Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are gaoled at a higher rate than African-American gaolings. If the ways forward do not concentrate on tackling poverty and extreme poverty, then they are not ways forward and more people than ever before will be left behind. More than 500,000 Australians still living have been to prison. I appreciate the complexity of these issues, and the challenges of dealing with them. The intersection of poverty and incarceration is not rocket science and it is where we must focus all attention. Overall, the authentic pathway to significantly reduce offending and the prison population are to lift people out of poverty, to improve life circumstances. As a result, Aboriginal women in corrections do not get paroled early if at all. Copyright © 2021 HuffPost.com, Inc. "HuffPost" is a registered trademark of HuffPost.com, Inc. All rights reserved. Why Are There So Many Aboriginal People in Prison? There is an agenda of attrition by a thousand cuts to kill off these communities — it is obvious, or how else the neglect and ongoing degradation of the majority of these communities? Female offenders are the most vulnerable in the prison population. One in four Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander males has been to prison. Get the top stories emailed every day. Aboriginal people have long been over-represented in Australian prisons. It estimates the costs of Indigenous incarceration and the By examining incarceration data, researchers found out that Indigenous people lose far more years of life to time spent incarcerated than to many other common causes of … Suicides of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons who lived above the poverty line are few and less than non-Indigenous suicides of people who lived above the poverty line. There are 300,000 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders living below the poverty line. Nearly 100% of incarcerated Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders are people who live below the poverty line. Anyone who has visited countries less fortunate would probably agree it's a reputation that is richly deserved. Presently, there are nearly 11,000 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders in gaol. Keep ‘em honest. It estimates the costs of Indigenous incarceration and the The Caucasian incarceration rate fell by 8.5 per cent from 2006 through 2015. Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA. 3.20Figure 3.3 below shows that the imprisonment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has increased 41% over 10 years, from 1,438 per 100,000 in 2006 to 2,039 per 100,000 persons in 2016. To keep us speaking truth to power, please consider donating to IA today - even a dollar will make a huge difference - or subscribe and receive all the benefits of membership. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners increased by 12% (12) to 116. 5.1 Both the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS) and the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (ALSWA) stated that the reasons for the high imprisonment rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons are 'well documented'. One in six South Australian Aboriginal people have been to prison. Aboriginal women are the most vulnerable among this vulnerable group. But there are areas where we seem locked in a time-warp. These well-documented social, economic and historical factors have been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada, originally in R. v. Gladue (1999) and reaffirmed in R. v. Ipeelee (2012): “To be clear, courts must take judicial notice of such matters as t… Presently, one in 12 of Western Australia’s Aboriginal adult males are in prison and, from a racialised lens, this is the world’s highest gaoling rate. This was raised as a matter of urgency by Howard Sapers, the Correctional Investigator, in a Special Report to Parliament. The transformation of Canadian society did not come about by accident. Prison system failed to ensure security tests aren't racially biased against Indigenous inmates More than 80% of incarcerated Manitoba minors are Indigenous. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Corrective Services, three states account for nearly three quarters of the total First Nations prisoner population — NSW with 28%, more than 3,200 First Nations prisoners, Queensland with 24%, more than 2,700 prisoners and Western Australia with 22%, more than 2,500 prisoners. ... with child protection and the devastating rates of family violence against Aboriginal women help pave the pathway to prison. Why Are There So Many Aboriginal People in Prison? Eight of ten children in remote communities do not complete Year 12. The mantra that the Commonwealth Government annually spends thereabouts $30 billion on “Indigenous disadvantage” is a lie. Millions of Canadians would not have been able to live the lives they wish to have and are able to have (to paraphrase the language of the Act) had these barriers remained. To reduce soaring Aboriginal prison rates it is essential to invest in psycho-social healing, counselling, empowerment, education and rehabilitation.. As with many programs designed to 'cure' Aboriginal issues, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Why Are There So Many Aboriginal People in Prison? © Copyright 2021 Independent Australia - All rights reserved. Up to 120,000 have been to prison. We need YOU! There is an urgent need for more affirmative actions, for the lifting of people out of poverty, for pathways to quality education and employment, for the full suite of infrastructure in all communities. The levels of illiteracy among prisoners break the heart. These 3 say that can be changed Not only are Aboriginal women over-represented in our prisons, a disproportionate number are held in solitary confinement. Another reason for the spike in Aboriginal incarceration is the harsh mandatory-minimum sentencing laws passed by Stephen Harper’s conservative government over the past decade which increased sentences for a wide variety of crimes while limiting parole opportunities. Prisoner without prior adult imprisonment remained stable at 101. More likely to return to prison on revocation of parole, often for administrative reasons, not criminal violations. The rates of incarceration tell of gruesome disparity: First Nations people being gaoled at 16 times the rate of the rest of the nation’s peoples. Although Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults make up around 2% of the national population, they constitute 27% of the national prison population. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Indigenous Australians are both convicted of crimes and imprisoned at a disproportionately high rate in Australia, as well as being over-represented as victims of crime. Nationally, by 2025, we are heading from today’s nearly one in three prisoners comprised of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders, to more than one in two. Yet Aboriginal people make up only four percent of our population. Prison system failed to ensure security tests aren't racially biased against Indigenous inmates More than 80% of incarcerated Manitoba minors are Indigenous. The significance of the prison environment, its impact on Aboriginal prisoners and the flow on effects to Aboriginal families, communities and the wider community becomes increasingly important when the increasing rate incarceration of Aboriginal peoples in the Australian prison system is … Imagine the devastating psychosocial impacts on families and communities not just presently but for generations unborn. It was driven by the determination of a wide cross-section of Canadians to build a society free of the kind of racial, ethnic and other barriers that are at the root of so much misery on the planet. The highest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate was recorded in Western Australia, 4,066 persons per 100,000 adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population — the world’s highest racialised gaoling rate. More than one in three of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders living below the poverty line have been to prison. It contains news and opinion from Australia and around the world. To keep us speaking truth to power, please consider donating to IA today - even a dollar will make a huge difference - or subscribe and receive all the benefits of membership. These 3 say that can be changed While the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) has reduced Canada’s overall youth incarceration rate in recent years, the relative proportion of detained Aboriginal youth has actually increased. They are ten times more likely than anyone else to end up in jail. 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