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mandatory sentencing by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - March 03, 2001 |
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| The cases are harrowing: Jamie Wurramara sentenced to one year in jail for stealing A$23 worth of biscuits. Johnno Warramarrba sentenced for stealing A$90 worth of stationery to a juvenile detention center, dying in custody (suicide) just a week before his scheduled release. Both were from Groote Eylandt, an outback mining region that is home to several indigenous communities. The cases are only the tip of the iceberg: the result of draconian two-strikes mandatory sentencing laws promoted by Australian Northern Territory Chief Minister, Denis Burke, who coldly claimed that "there will always be deaths in custody." The debate about mandatory sentencing laws has revealed deeply embedded prejudices concerning Australia's indigenous people (and the rifts between State governments constitutionally responsible for their dominion, and Federal government macro-views). Despite the Mabo and Wik land rights debates and Stolen Generation investigations (a reference to the White Australia policies regarding adopted Aboriginal children, displaced from their indiegenous communities), little progress toward justice system reform in the Northern Territory and Western Australia have been made. The laws are a populist response by a conservative Territory government keen to be seen as tough on crime. Their implementation is complicated by a sometimes over-zealous police force and a justice system viewed by Burke (also the Territory's Attorney-General) as corrupt. Burke has publicly criticized 'do gooders' and the justice system's 'lawyers', who alongside legal services and church leaders have criticized Burke's administration and called repeatedly for his resignation. There is little evidence that the punitive laws are effective in reducing crime-rates: in 1997-98 detention of children in the territory increased by 53 per cent. The laws also breach international United Nations treaties that Australia has signed and is obligated to uphold, including the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention of the Rights of the Child. The Australian Federal government has refused to intervene and change the laws (which it did with Northern Territory euthanasia laws), with conservative Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer both snubbing calls by UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan for investigation. Mandatory sentencing undermines faith in the judicial system's abilities to resolve legal issues. It grafts simplistic but costly and ineffective structures onto systems which have long needed progressive reform. It has been modelled after America's "3 strikes" laws (which affect more people than the one million residents of Western Australia and the Northern Territory). Mandatory sentencing fails to address the wider structural problems of intertwining crime, poverty, and unemployment. Deaths in custody have long been a flash-point in Australia's troubled mindscape. With the demise of South Africa's apartheid system, Australia remains one of the few Western nations to enter the 21st Century with draconian laws that unfairly discriminate against its indigenous people. |
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Australian Institute of Criminology Indigenous Peoples And The Law Australian Indigenous Peoples And The Law: Subject Index Ending Offending Commonwealth of Australia: Media Releases Issues 2000: Mandatory Sentencing Aboriginal Deaths in Custody: A Dead Issue? NT Mandatory Sentencing: 12 Months Of Bad Policy Public Outcry in Australia over Jailed Aboriginal Boy's Suicide Destructive Experiment In Social Engineering Mandatory Sentencing In The Northern Territory Alice Springs News Mandatory Sentencing Behind The News: Mandatory Sentence Law Council Demands Repeal Of Mandatory Sentencing Laws Sattler Online: Editorial: Mandatory Sentencing |
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