Missions and Institutions

NSW Bar Association calls for a new approach to Aboriginal imprisonment

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ABORIGINAL INCARCERATION

The Bar Association of NSW's submission to a Law Reform Commission inquiry into First Nations incarceration calls for a new approach to sentencing which takes into account the deprivation and disadvantage inherent in an individual's Aboriginal background. The association also calls for an end to mandatory sentences, which make it impossible for courts to make any allowance for such disadvantage in their decisions. The rate at which Aboriginal people end up in jail is appalling and in NSW last year Aboriginal people were 3 per cent of the population, but 24 per cent of the prison population.

What is the relevance of Pope’s Apology to Oceania & ‘Australian Aborigines’?

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POPE'S APOLOGY TO OCEANIA

Along with the Papal Apologies we have been researching the Bible and its scriptures, because one thing that haunts the memory of our Old People, and this memory has been handed down to us in this generation to this day, is the realisation: They came with the Book in their hand when we were the sovereigns of the soil, but within 50 years we were killed with impunity and we were imprisoned not for any wrongs doings, but simply because of who we are. The question we must now ask ourselves is what is the relevance of the Papal Apology to Oceania

Treating the cause of crime more effective than only addressing the crime itself

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WA Imprisonment rates

With WA Corrective Services spending more than $900 million last financial year and 39 per cent of imprisoned offenders returning to jail within a two year period, Associate Professor Sarah Murray from UWA's Law School said new approaches were needed using local knowledge and bringing the community into the picture. Researchers from The University of Western Australia's Law School have been studying the feasibility model and propose a one stop shop that includes a court, crime prevention team and key support services in partnership with the local community

The invisibility of young peoples voices in the Don Dale royal commission’s interim report

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Mick Gooda and Margaret White - Northern Territory Youth Detention Royal CommissionersNorthern Territory Youth Detention Royal Commissioners Mick Gooda and Margaret White
(The Australian)

Young people’s voices are all but invisible in the Don Dale royal commission’s interim report
By Thalia Anthony
Associate Professor in Law, University of Technology Sydney
6 April 2017

'Lab Rats' - Medical experiments on Aboriginal children in care

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Medical experiaments on children in Australia

There is one group in society so powerless, that its voice has not been heard. The abuses its members experienced should make all of those arguing about rights, morality, power, and the separation of Church and State, in the debate on stem cell research, sit up and take notice. Its members are the victims of the lack of church and state separation in past medical experimentation in this country. They are the children who lived in child welfare institutions and were used as real life “lab rats” in the pursuit of medical breakthroughs.

Landmark research into 'Aborigines Protection Board - New South Wales

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From 1883 until 1969, the lives and affairs of Aboriginal people in NSW were utterly controlled by the Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board.

The research team will spend more than four years visiting locations across NSW where Aboriginal missions and reserves were established to collect personal oral histories and family/community recollections and records, letters, documents and photographs

07 August 2015

Truth, not lies, on First Nations suicide rates

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Suicides in First Nations communities are linked to extreme poverty and disadvantage from the beginning of life, intergenerational trauma, cultural identity, racialisation and racism. Often alcohol and substance abuse are considered by many as underlying causes but these are not underlying causes and rather they are at best contributing factors borne symptomatically of the conditions above.

This article and links to all many other articles by First Nation suicide expert Gerry Georgatos.