BY NICK SOUDAKOFF
DARWIN — Two hundred people have marked the first anniversary of the death in custody of a young man sentenced to a 28-day jail sentence for stealing textas, in an emotional rally here on February 9 calling for an end to mandatory sentencing legislation.
Rally participants brought flowers, which were then taken by the young man's family back to Groote Eylandt for a memorial service there. Banners in the crowd read "People before property" and "NT, the jail state".
The rally was organised by the family of the young man, with the help of the North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (NAALAS), and was opened by Richard Fejo from the Larrakia nation.
Both of the young man's grandmothers, angry at their loss, addressed the rally. Hazel Lalara spoke of how scant resources for their community, especially for their young people, had left them bored and frustrated and prone to getting into trouble with the police. Many in the rally were brought to tears as the two broke down and wept.
The rally was addressed by David Evenden, a lawyer for NAALAS, who spoke of the level of police harassment of Aboriginal people in the territory.
He said the 1990 report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody identified overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in prison as a key contributing factor to the correspondingly high rate of black deaths in custody.
One of the commission's key recommendations was that jail should be a "last resort", but mandatory sentencing was the doing the opposite, Evenden argued, giving young Aboriginal men "year-long sentences for such things as stealing biscuits, or riding in a stolen car".
Evenden compared the policy of mandatory sentencing with those associated with the "stolen generations" of Aboriginal children taken from their families, saying the government was creating a "jail generation".
Other speakers included Territory Labor's shadow attorney-general, Syd Stirling, who pledged that the party would repeal mandatory sentencing legislation if elected.
Labor member for Arnhem John Ah Kit read out messages from Greens senator Bob Brown, Brian Greig of the Democrats, the federal shadow attorney-general Robert McClelland, former prime minister Gough Whitlam and others.