imprisonment

Need to delete sections 268.121 – 268.122 of the law against genocide in International Criminal Court Consequential Amendments Act 2002. The release on 29 November of The Family Matters Report 2017 details the 'escalating national crisis’ of the rate of removal of First Nations children from families. From our perspective the core issue is being left out of the debate. Removal of children from the group is one of the five definitions of genocide. The alarming rate of the removal of First Nations children 'from the group’ is only possible because the Commonwealth of Australia has not imported the full force of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. etc ... [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

In 2012, a self-appointed neighborhood watch member, chased a 17yo African American boy in Florida, and shot him. Last week, a 55-year-old man chased a 14yo Elijah Doughty ran him down with his truck. In USA the court failed to hold the perpetrator accountable, giving rise to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. In each case, a vigilante suspected a young person of colour of wrongdoing and killed him. In each case, the killer executed summary justice. [node:read-more:link]

A new report suggests Aboriginal people are facing enormous pressure to lose their traditional culture in order to be successful in Australia.
"Daily I'm juggling with who I am, how I talk, how I act and look and whatever," an anonymous respondent in the study said. "So you get it from the whitefella's, you know, that you can't talk good English, and then these blackfella's: 'Why are you acting white, talking white?'" [node:read-more:link]

PM Turnbull's Royal Commission into juvenile justice in Northern Territory is a cowardly act by a Prime Minister, who is ducking for cover in an attempt to protect his Minister, Nigel Scullion, from being scrutinised by the national and international community, which has been shocked into total disbelief at what was shown on Australian National TV by ABC Four Corners report 'Australia's Shame' on Monday 25 August 2016. We thank Cara Meldrum Hana for her investigative journalism skills to expose graphically what had been ignored by the authorities for so long. [node:read-more:link]

The recent cuts by the Commonwealth government to the Aboriginal Legal Aid budget demonstrate the need for Aboriginal people to change the way they do business with governments.

These cuts to legal aid will also deny people of their natural legal right to appeal severity of sentencing and to appeal the facts presented by police, etc. There will be others who will no longer have access to the Court of Criminal Appeal from within prison. The underfunded pilot diversionary programs being introduced are no substitute for natural justice. [node:read-more:link]

Figures show that the number of First Nations children being jailed is rising enormously, as the tide of social dysfunction in urban and regional centres has never been properly addressed.

More than 250 indigenous youth in northwestern New South Wales have been sentenced to juvenile prison terms during the past five years compared with only 12 non-Aboriginal children, The Australian newspaper reported.

Figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show the national rate of Aboriginal juvenile incarceration has risen to 31 times the non-indigenous rate and rising.

See also:   Call for review of juvenile sentencing

Police arrested an innocent First Nations man and dropped him off at a psychiatric institute in Western Australia who shot him up with so many drugs he had to be taken to a hospital in dire need of medical attention.
The Graylands Psychiatric Hospital staff didn't bother checking him out properly and gave him very powerful anti-psychotic medications which caused the man to develop severe adverse reactions and was treated for medication poisoning.    [node:read-more:link]