FEATURE
Justice reinvestment: a community driven process to tackle root causes of crime among Aboriginal youth THE HON. ROBYN LAYTON AO QC
A
good news story. The Justice Reinvestment project Tiraapendi Wodli is addressing the high rates of Aboriginal people in incarceration from the Port Adelaide and Enfield suburbs (PA&E). The journey began in South Australia in 2012. It is based on the concept of justice reinvestment originally conceived in the United States in 2003 but is so far being adapted and applied in Australia by more than 21 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, mostly rural.1 In South Australia it is being implemented by the PA&E Aboriginal2 community (Tiraapendi Wodli) with three way support: non-financial support and advocacy from Justice Reinvestment South Australia (JRSA);3 major funding from the SA Department of Human Services (DHS); and critical support in money and kind by the Australian Red Cross (ARC). Premier Steven Marshall has also lent his political support and endorsement for government funding up until 2023.4
WHAT IS JUSTICE REINVESTMENT? Justice reinvestment is not a program but a process. It addresses high incarceration rates by tackling the root causes of crime to reduce incarceration and invest money into services and supports instead of prisons. It commences by collecting and analysing criminogenic and socio- economic data to identify communities with high incarceration rates and then developing and applying strategies that address the underlying causes. In Australia it differs from US approaches which are now government led, to instead enable an Aboriginal community itself to identify and implement strategies to tackle causes of crime in its community and strengthen public safety and social cohesion over the long-term for future generations. It is a preventative and supportive approach - a transformative approach that is “bottom up”5 and not “top down”6. Evidence from Australia and worldwide shows that prison entrenches and deepens
14 THE BULLETIN November 2021
disadvantage rather than allowing people to turn their lives around. Many who enter prison are already homeless and jobless and when they leave prison, their prospects of finding a home or a job further deteriorate. Poverty, and poverty of opportunity, makes reoffending and returning to prison more likely. Failure to invest properly in strategies to reduce reoffending means that prisons can end up making communities less safe. Aboriginal community - controlled organisations have a unique capacity to develop and implement localised, tailored solutions and provide culturally appropriate services that have the support of the community. Responding to the needs of community is critical to reducing incarceration and recidivism. This includes assisting with homelessness, improving health and mental issues, improving education, strengthening cultural knowledge and pride, linking people to culturally appropriate services and giving tools to Aboriginal people to improve their lives and employment opportunities. In South Australia the Aboriginal leadership organisation Tiraapendi Wodli does just that. The basic facts in South Australia:7 • 2,986 people are in South Australia’s adult prisons. • 7.9% are women. • 23.5% are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. • 57% have already been in prison before - the revolving door - the highest in a decade. • 223 persons per 100,000 South Australians are in prison which is above the Australian average (215 per 100,000) and well above most comparable jurisdictions across Western Europe and Canada. • More than 4 in 10 people in prisons are unsentenced and this remand population is proportionately higher than any other Australian state or territory. • 42.3% of people exiting prison receive either another prison sentence or a community corrections order within 2 years of their release.
Premier Steven Marshall, Human Services Minister Michele Lensink and the Sparrow family at the launch of Tiraapendi Wodli
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Over half of the youth prison population are young Aboriginal people –10 - 17 years old Young Aboriginal people are 22 times more likely to be in prison than non-Indigenous young people – the beginning of the revolving door.
COMPARATIVE COSTS OF PRISON ORDERS AND COMMUNITY ORDERS The direct cost to South Australians per adult prisoner per year is $86,213 or $236.20 per day.8 The SA Government is also spending an additional $187 million on new prison beds (Yatala Labour Prison and Adelaide Women’s Prison), at a cost of half a million dollars per prison bed.9 In 2018 the Australian Institute of Criminology published research on the costs associated with community corrections orders in Victoria in comparison with the cost of prison sentences over a five-year period.10 The research compared 804 people entering the prison system matched11 with
