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Number of imprisoned Australians declining but Indigenous people still shamefully overrepresented [1]

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Date: 2023-02-27  

The number of Indigenous prisoners in Australia is alarmingly high (Credit: Independent Australia. Screenshot via YouTube)

Violent crime in Australia is gradually decreasing. This is good. Except among Indigenous people. Rates of imprisonment Australia-wide are declining, which is also gratifying. But the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people incarcerated is still disturbingly high.

These are among revelations in data released last Friday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The proportion of Indigenous people imprisoned last year was 31.8% of the total adult prison population. This is the highest since the ABS started the current dataset in 2006.

This is an appalling indictment on Australia’s governments, institutions and people given that Indigenous Australians are just 3.8% of the total population (latest ABS count).

The total number of adult Australians imprisoned nationwide has decreased since 2018 by 5.5%, down from 42,974 to just 40,591 in 2022.

In stark contrast, Indigenous adults imprisoned increased by 8.9% from 11,849 in 2018 to 12,902 in 2022. See chart, below.

Political responsibility

The change in prison populations – for any racial group – is not something readily attributable to one side of federal politics, as are, for example, incompetent fiscal management and economic corruption.

Some federal decisions and policy changes can impact prison populations, such as funding for mental health, but decisions by state governments have more direct bearing. State governments manage most police forces, prison systems, schools and welfare delivery to marginalised groups.

Many factors are outside the remit of any government, state, federal or local, such as community prejudice against minorities and surges in drug availability and usage.

Causes of Indigenous incarceration

This has been blight on Australian society for more than 200 years. The reasons are complex, difficult to discern and not easily agreed upon. If causes are not understood, then naturally solutions will be elusive.

There is a strong case that the best shot Australia ever had at dramatically reducing, if not ending, Indigenous disadvantage was through the replacement in 1990 of the whitefella-controlled Department of Aboriginal Affairs with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). This gave elected Indigenous representatives unprecedented authority to determine policies relating to their people and actual control over the allocation of substantial material resources.

This, along with land rights legislation and other preceding reforms, laid the foundation – at long last – for Indigenous leadership to emerge and strengthen and, in due course, address the multiple challenges.

The conservative Howard Coalition Government, which had always been hostile to Indigenous aspirations, abolished ATSIC in 2004.

In his groundbreaking volume Why Warriors Lie Down and Die, Richard Trudgeon analysed the reasons for the social evils of Arnhem Land’s Yolngu communities, including those which lead to incarceration.

One factor is what he calls the “multigenerational legacy of trauma”. Others are the diminished authority of traditional leaders, land tenure insecurity, confusion about how the economy works and non-recognition of ancient law that once brought peace and prosperity.

If Trudgeon and the many who agree with him are right, ATSIC should have been given much longer than its shaky 13 years to settle into its role.

Indigenous incarceration looking ahead

To the extent that criminal misconduct arises from economic disadvantage, pressure is now on the incoming Albanese Labor Government to address this through adequate funding of education, physical health, mental health and community facilities, particularly in remote regions.

Money, however, will not fix the loss of Indigenous culture, language, identity, self-confidence, pride and optimism for the future.

Let’s hope the Voice to the Parliament currently being debated assists here. It should be given a fair chance.

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This is an abbreviated version of an article published today in Independent Australia. The original article is available here in full for free:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/prisoner-numbers-declining-but-indigenous-people-still-overrepresented,17273

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/27/2155254/-Number-of-imprisoned-Australians-declining-but-Indigenous-people-still-shamefully-overrepresented

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