Howard and Burke's dirty deal
While the compromise on mandatory sentencing struck between Prime Minister
John Howard and Northern Territory chief minister Denis Burke may have
been sufficient to quell disquiet from the Liberal backbench, the “deal”
ensures that mandatory sentencing legislation in the NT remains intact
and the Western Australian legislation remains untouched.
The deal proposes that 17-year-olds be dealt with as juveniles under
mandatory sentencing laws, rather than as adults as has been required up
until now. NT police will be required to divert “juveniles” at the pre-charge
stage for minor crimes.
In more serious offences, police will have the discretion to divert
offenders and not pursue charges when offenders “successfully” complete
a program. The federal government has promised $5 million to establish
diversionary programs for alleged “juvenile” offenders.
Yet much research shows that indigenous youth rarely benefit from diversionary
schemes, especially those where police have the discretion as to who can
and can't access them. Discretionary powers in such cases have generally
been exercised to the disadvantage of Aboriginal young people.
As such, the proposed deal is an expansion of police powers, as it is
they, rather than the courts, who will determine how people are dealt with
after arrest. It is police who will have the further power to determine
whether a young person has successfully completed a diversionary program
-- those who don't do so may again face a mandated sentence.
A planned $800,000 of commonwealth funding for an Aboriginal interpreter
service will not go very far, either. The NT government continues to refuse
to help fund such a service, just as the federal government has done up
until now.
The changes are not about tackling the injustices of the mandatory sentencing
regime. They are rather a cynical public relations exercise by governments
which enforce the very policies that result in the outrageously high rates
of indigenous incarceration in the first place.
Howard and Burke's agreement, by preserving the mandatory sentencing
regime, continues to defy the findings of both the Royal Commission into
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the stolen generations report, both of
which urge that prison be used as a last, not a first, resort and that
indigenous communities be given greater, not lesser, control over the administration
of justice.
The deal certainly does not address the racial discrimination which
indigenous communities face daily, opposition to which lies at the heart
of public outrage at mandatory sentencing.
Mandatory sentencing is racist in both its intent and its impact; it
entrenches Aboriginal disadvantage. That can not be erased by minor changes
at the edges.
In the first year of mandatory sentencing in the NT, 1997, the number
of Aborigines in the territory's prisons rose 125%, whilst the number of
non-indigenous people in prison increased 84%. Aboriginal people make up
one quarter of the NT population but three quarters of its prison population.
Ninety per cent of young people in detention in the NT are Aborigines.
It was the massive popular outrage that forced the PM's hand -- this
is what he is hoping to assuage by such a deal with Burke.
But in the face of a deal that does nothing to undo the injustice, we
must continue to mobilise this outrage, to educate the public and to organise
public protest actions. Our demand must remain what it has been since the
start: the immediate repeal of all mandatory sentencing legislation.
