‘Tough, Tougher, Toughest’
Can we get any tougher on Aboriginal crime?
In Australia today, we have a running competition in most states and territories to see who can be toughest on crime-read toughest on Aboriginal crime. Politically, ‘tough on crime’ works. In the past 12 months it’s handed election victories to conservative parties in both Queensland and the Northern Territory.
There is near zero support from criminologists, other experts, front-line workers and Aboriginal communities for a ‘tough-on-crime’ approach.
“What research is increasingly showing is that imprisonment itself and punishment more generally is actually criminogenic–it makes it more likely that people are going to re-offend,”
Emeritus Professor David Brown, University of NSW, 2025
Incarceration rates for Aboriginal people in Australia are already the highest-by a long way-of any population in the world. See ‘Peak Prison?
How much ‘tougher’ on crime can we get? What are we hoping to achieve?
In every way being ‘tough on crime’ hurts us all; it creates many more problems than it solves. It is costly and it is shameful. Despite false political claims that tough on crime measures affect everyone equally, they disproportionately target Aboriginal people-they are an ongoing attempt to break the spirit of Aboriginal communities around the country.
We all know that the current policies and rhetoric have little to do with keeping us all safer. When doing more of the same doesn’t work, it’s time for fresh thinking and a change of course.
In this space we will explore the issues surrounding Aboriginal over-incarceration from as many angles as we possibly can and look to solutions. The solutions require a major shake-up of the way we think about better justice for Aboriginal people in Australia. Tinkering around the edges will not do.
We whitefellas have created this system, we condone it and we perpetuate it.
We have to demand the change.
We have a lot of work to do to right this wrong.