Page 2042 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2017
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continue to see over-representation of Indigenous people in our justice system. I am personally committed to improving this situation; I know the rest of the government is and I know this entire Assembly is committed to addressing this. I will speak briefly about some of the many initiatives we are progressing to reduce recidivism. As I have said, I will provide a much more comprehensive statement later in the year.
As members would be aware, in yesterday’s budget I announced that funding would continue for the justice reinvestment trial currently being developed and implemented in partnership with Winnunga. This is an important example of a co-designed program working collaboratively with local providers and of the government taking the time to ensure that we make a genuine impact on addressing often complex structural disadvantage.
As Mrs Jones’s motion points out, the recent evaluation of the very successful extended through-care program identified some areas for improvement in relation to engagement with male Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders leaving custody. While I do not shy away from the need to enhance through care’s outcomes for this group and have announced increased funding for the program to do just this, I assure members that that work is already underway.
The most recent advice I have to hand shows that out of the 73 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients who accepted through-care support for the 2015-16 period, only six returned to custody within the same financial year. Yes, that is six too many, but as a proportion, it is relatively lower than the overall recidivism statistics and offers a point of optimism. It is not an ultimate solution and I am not saying we should rest on our laurels, but it is a note of optimism.
Most of these through-care clients returned to custody for a less serious offence than their previous offence or for breaches of parole or court orders. A number of clients lived in the community for a longer period than previously managed. Again, that is not something to completely celebrate but it is acknowledgement that through care is assisting people to live their lives longer in the community before they reoffend.
For people who have had a long and repeated history of offending, simply being out of custody for six months rather than one month is an advance that we can try to build on in the future for improving their lives and increasing the length of time that they are out of custody. These small measures do not show up in some of the formal statistics but they are also part of the positive progress I believe is being made for some former detainees.
Another example of an effort to deal with this area of recidivism is a bail support trial which is in the first stages of development as part of a broader justice reinvestment strategy. It is a vital element of the government’s commitment to addressing over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within the criminal justice system and of reducing recidivism by 25 per cent. It is intended that the bail support trial will provide services and support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who, in the absence of bail support, would likely not be granted bail.
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