CHANGE THE RECORD

So-called justice targets won't deliver justice for First Nations peoples

So-called justice targets won't deliver justice for First Nations peoples

MEDIA RELEASE: So-called justice targets won't deliver justice for First Nations peoples

30 July 2020

Change the Record condemns so-called “justice targets” announced today for failing to even aspire to end the mass-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within our lifetimes. 

When the draft parity date of 2093 was reported on in early July 2020 it was widely condemned by Aboriginal legal services, human rights organisations and the Law Council. While this figure has been omitted from the final agreement released today; the target to reduce adult incarceration by 15% by 2030 (the same interim target that lead to the 2093 parity figure) has not changed. 


Cheryl Axleby, Co-Chair Change the Record: 

“These so-called justice targets will deliver anything but justice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. For too long our people have been forced into the quicksand of the criminal legal system by discriminatory laws, discriminatory policing and systematic disadvantage and poverty. 

“Governments had an opportunity in the new Closing the Gap Agreement to give our young people a future. Instead they’ve chosen lazy politics over the lives and futures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 

“At the same time as signing onto so-called justice targets, Attorneys-General refused to commit to #RaiseTheAge of criminal responsibility from just 10 years old to at least 14 years old. Raising the age is a crucial step to closing the doors of police and prison cells to very young children, and instead keep them in school, with family and in community where they belong.

“If governments were serious about ending the mass imprisonment of our people, then we would have justice targets that saw an end to the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by 2040 at the very latest, and Attorneys-General would have agreed to the simple law change of raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 years old to 14. 

“First Nations people have been fighting for justice for a long time, and we won’t stop now. We have the solutions and we have the public support for reform; all we need now is the political leadership. ” 

END



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