Conference to address excessive incarceration

A national conference on the excessive incarceration of Aboriginal people will be held in Adelaide later this year.

The conference is being convened by South Australia’s Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement. The excessive incarceration of Aboriginal people in South Australia and across the nation continues to cause concern to ALRM Chief Executive Officer, Neil Gillespie. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s latest report shows the imprisonment rate of Aboriginal people has increased more than 50% over the last decade.

“Those numbers are simply outrageous,” said Mr Gillespie. “Indigenous Australians comprise more than a quarter of all people in prison, when they are just 2.5% of the total population. “The Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Board and I express our continued frustration at the locking up Aboriginal people without adequate resources from Government to provide appropriate legal representation.

“We have advocated long and hard for early intervention and prevention, justice reinvestment and restorative justice programs without much success.”

“ALRM continues to be starved of resources while the Commonwealth and State Governments have argued for the last five years on who should be funding us.

“It appears both Commonwealth and State Governments are happy to simply lock up Aboriginal people which is the simplest solution to complex community issues, rather than implement programs that address the causes of Aboriginal engagement in the justice system. The United Nations Human Rights Committee and other UN agencies continue to express concern to Australia about its continued mistreatment of Aboriginal people, and in particular the continuing denial of access to justice and excessive incarceration rates of Aboriginal people throughout the country. Mr Gillespie said the outcome of the national conference is to identify initiatives and present these to Government in the expectation of influencing Government Policy in regard to justice issues in Australia.

Our planned Conference’s slogan is “Justice without Prejudice” and our theme is “Locking us up isn’t the Answer”.