Meeting the challenge of better indigenous justice lies with the sentencing

THE age-old complaint that there are disproportionate numbers of indigenous people in our prisons has been raised yet again and the ugly thought behind it is the reason for that is racism.

My experience in criminal practice over three decades is indigenous people sentenced by the courts are more likely to receive a prison sentence than a white person, and that is because of a racial difference between the two groups that is impossible for the courts to avoid.

Everybody must realise by now there are many non-custodial sentences the courts may impose in the proper exercise of their discretion, but it has been the sorry history of the courts and the various corrective service organisations that indigenous people do not respond well to those alternative penalties.

A penalty for a criminal offence is meant to bring home to the offender a sense of punishment for a wrong against the community. Without that an offender will never change his behaviour, but will often graduate to even more serious offences.

Imposing a fine is useless unless it is within the means of the offender to pay – and in most cases the fine is ignored.

The answer lies in the hands of those most concerned with the support and protection of indigenous people.

Instead of wasting energy protesting loudly and in contempt of social distancing rules, try putting some real pressure, in a law-respecting way, upon your political representatives.

All governments are, or should be, aware of the above problem and need to be reminded of their responsibilities to create more suitable forms of penalties in these cases. One that I have thought appropriate is a variant of the “boot camp” concept, with supervision by indigenous elders who could instil some new concepts of behaviour more likely to give them a better life in future.