Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are among the most imprisoned people in the world as a percentage of the population.
It is timely then, that last week the Australian Law Reform Commission tabled its report Pathways to Justice–Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, in Federal Parliament.
The inquiry was led by Federal Court Judge, Matthew Myers. The purpose of the report was to investigate whether courts, police and prisons were contributing to the over incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to develop law reform recommendations to reduce disproportionate incarceration.
The report finds, shockingly, that although they are 2% of the national population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults constitute 27% of the national prison population. Males are 14 more likely, and women are 21 more likely, to be imprisoned.
Over representation is an already entrenched but growing problem. In 1991, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found that the Aboriginal population was grossly over-represented in custody. Despite this, and the Australian Government’s apology to the Stolen Generation, the imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has increased by 75 per cent in the last decade while the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous incarceration rates widened by 41%.
The report makes 35 recommendations for law reform. They include sentencing and bail reforms that take into account unique systemic and background factors affecting Indigenous peoples. Other recommendations were the establishment of an Independent Justice Reinvestment Body and Justice Reinvestment Trials.
A copy of Pathways to Justice is available at www.alrc.gov.au/publications. A Summary Report is also available.