Statement against mandatory sentencing
The following statement is being circulated around Australia for opponents of mandatory sentencing to sign, e-mail to the decision-makers listed below, and pass on to others to do the same. For more information, contact the Deaths In Custody Watch Committee (WA) at 119 Mathieson Road, Redcliffe WA 6104, or e-mail <[email protected]>, or visit the web site at <http://www.omen.net.au/~dicwc>.
We, the undersigned Australians, request that the Northern Territory government repeal the Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders Bill 1999 immediately.
We believe the recent death of a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy who was being detained in Darwin under the Territory's mandatory sentencing laws was avoidable.
We believe the Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders Bill 1999 is discriminatory, disrespectful, morally abhorrent, racist and unjust. The mandatory sentencing bill takes the responsibility for law and order away from the local custodians of the law in each Aboriginal community in the Territory.
Despite the Royal Commission's Inquiry into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and 339 recommendations later, Aboriginal people are still 14 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Aboriginal Australians. In the Northern Territory, 72.8 per cent of the prison population is Aboriginal. This compares with 33.1% in Western Australia and 21.6% in Queensland.
Does the Northern Territory government genuinely believe that mandatory sentencing laws are making a real difference?
There is a better way.
We believe the boy's local community and family could have undertaken a more appropriate action under customary law and the young boy would probably still be alive today.
We urge you to consider enabling and supporting Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory to implement their own laws as responsible, respectful and valid, ways of dealing with offensive law breaking behaviour.
Send to: Hon. Peter Adamson <[email protected]>; John Leonard Ahkit <[email protected]>; Stephen John <[email protected]>; Hon. Timothy Denney <[email protected]>; Hon. Loraine Margaret <[email protected]>; Denis Gabriel <[email protected]>; Hon. Stephen Dunham <[email protected]>; Johan Wessel <[email protected]>; Stephen Paul <[email protected]>; Paul Raymond <[email protected]>; Margaret Anne Hickey <[email protected]>; Richard Soon Huat <[email protected]>; Hon. Christopher Dennis <[email protected]>; Hon. Daryl Williams <[email protected]>; Clare Majella <[email protected]>; Hon. Terence Robert <[email protected]>; Terence Kennedy <[email protected]>; Philip Anthony <[email protected]>; Hon. Michael James <[email protected]>; Hon. Eric Houguet <[email protected]>; Hon. Michael Anthony <[email protected]>; Maurice Joseph <[email protected]>; Sydney James <[email protected]>; Hon. Shane Leslie Stone <[email protected]>; Peter Howard <[email protected]>.