Page 3736 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 23 November 2022
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facts and points that affect the lives of First Nations people. Unfortunately, there is a lack of strategy on how to address these contained within her amendment. Therefore, I want to talk a bit further about these.
When you are wishing to talk about Indigenous people’s incarceration, there are no people better to talk to than a group such as Change the Record. They are one group which I have closely engaged with, and I wish to draw attention to the strategies which they wish to apply to over-incarceration.
They provide 12 strategies. These include, first, to invest in communities and not prisons. Evidence clearly demonstrates that strong, healthy communities are the most effective way to prevent crime and make communities safe. Prisons have been shown to be extremely costly, damaging and ultimately ineffective at reducing crime. Every dollar spent on prisons is one less dollar available to invest in reducing social and economic disadvantage through education, health, disability, housing, employment and other programs.
Second: their strategy calls for “local communities have the answers”. Directly affected people are the best place to identify local issues in their community and to implement local solutions.
Third: we need to recognise the driving factors of imprisonment. Along with the experience of poverty and disadvantage, involvement in the child protection system and family violence are two of the clearest indicators of people who are more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. Early intervention strategies to prevent crime must include measures to stop domestic violence and avoid exposure to the child protection system.
Fourth: there needs to be a focus on safety. The impacts of crime are felt most keenly by people in that community, particularly women and children who are victims of violent behaviour. Successful early intervention and prevention strategies not only would cut off offending and imprisonment rates but also, importantly, would increase safety by addressing the root causes of violence against women and children.
Fifth: it is about services not sentences. The criminal justice system is often an ineffective or inappropriate way to look after people who have a disability or are experiencing poverty, mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, homelessness or unemployment. We need a social policy and a public health response to such issues, not a criminal justice one.
Sixth: we need community policing, not police in their community. Police have an enormously important and often difficult role to play in dealing with offending behaviour and keeping all of our community safe. However, for many communities, their experience of police can result in over-policing, harassment and racism. Therefore, we need to make sure we are striking the right balance in our policing.
Seventh: we need to get smarter about sentencing. The hallmark of a justice system is fairness. Harsher sentences and laws that strip judges of their ability to make a sentence fit the crime, such as mandatory sentencing, need to be changed. A wider range of sentencing alternatives encompassing non-custodial options enable judges to ensure that sentences are tailored, fair and appropriate.
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