LL:ART: Mandatory jailing 'masks black genocide'

[Deaths In Custody Watch Commitee (WA) Inc.]

Mandatory jailing 'masks black genocide'
By MATTHEW ABRAHAM

19may99

MANDATORY sentencing laws could be masking a "hidden genocidal intent"
given new research showing rising Aboriginal imprisonment rates across
Australia, NSW magistrate Pat O'Shane has warned. 

Ms O'Shane, an outspoken advocate of Aboriginal rights, said despite
evidence Aborigines were no more "criminal" than the rest of the
population, the latest figures showed Aboriginal imprisonment had continued
to increase since the 1991 royal commission findings into Aboriginal deaths
in custody. 

Delivering the Elliott Johnston tribute address at Adelaide's Flinders
University last night, Ms O'Shane said that as research showed harsher
penalties had little if any effect on crime rates, it was difficult to
avoid the view the Northern Territory's mandatory sentencing laws were
"targetted specifically at Aborigines". 

"If we accept the findings of the royal commission that the major cause of
Aboriginal deaths in custody is the fact that they are in custody too
often, we might permit ourselves to wonder aloud whether there might even
be a hidden genocidal intent in the Northern Territory's mandatory
sentencing laws," Ms O'Shane said. 

Ms O'Shane said while the royal commission found Aborigines were 10 times
more likely than non-Aboriginal people to be in prison, an examination of
the types of offences of conviction or charge showed "Aborigines are no
more criminal than are non-Aboriginal Australians". 

She said research by the University of Sydney and the Australian National
University for a new book indicated imprisonment rates for all Australians
had risen, but those for Aborigines had outstripped non-Aboriginal rates. 

The 1995 National Prison Census showed 17.1 per cent of all prisoners were
Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, when they made up only 1.3 per cent
of the population. 

In 1986, Aborigines made up 14.6 per cent of all prisoners and 1.46 per
cent of the total population. 

"Increased imprisonment rates, far from being signifiers that Aborigines
have become more criminal in the recent past, rather indicate abject
failure by governments," she said. 

Ms O'Shane also criticised cases of "passive pin-pricking racism", such as
mandatory sentencing and the common practice of serving released Aboriginal
prisoners with warrants for previous offences. 


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