Youth detention, incarceration, closing the gap, and who we are

 

Your dishonour

Mangles true judgement, and bereaves the state

Of that integrity which should become it.

Coriolanus Act three, Scene one.

 

According to ABS census data from 2021 (link here), one-third (33.1%) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were aged under 15 years compared with 17.9% of non-Indigenous people in the same age group.  The median age nationally of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population was 24 years. While remote and very remote Indigenous populations comprise only 15 percent of the national Indigenous population, and two less than one percent of the Australian population, they are amongst the most disadvantaged citizens across virtually every social indicator.

In recent months, there have been several articles focussed on the plight of remote communities; places where the demographic profile is heavily slanted toward those under 24.

In October, Daniel James, a Yorta Yorta man wrote a searing indictment of government policy in Central Australia in The Monthly titled Children of the intervention (link here). More recently in The Saturday Paper (link here), Ben Abbatangelo, a Gunaikurnai and Wotjobaluk writer wrote a searing — yet hopeful —  indictment of the situation in Wadeye titled  Yidiyi Festival returns hope to Wadeye. I have quibbles with both articles related to their focus on particular places thus de-emphasising the wider structural drivers of disadvantage across remote Australia generally, and their implicit choice of temporal perspectives. Both articles are nevertheless extremely powerful critiques of Government policy neglect and ineptitude, while not ignoring the complexity and nuance which bedevils any close analysis of these issues.

It was within this overarching policy context that the Joint Council on Closing the Gap met last week. The Joint Council includes every Minister for Indigenous Affairs in the federation plus representatives of the Coalition of Peaks. Their communique (link here) mentioned a number of issues, but focussed particular attention on one specific issue:

Joint Council discussed critical matters regarding youth justice and agreed that Target 11 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (the National Agreement) is an urgent priority that requires collective action across multiple government portfolios and jurisdictions to deliver on the ground results. Target 11, to reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people (10 – 17 years) in detention by at least 30 per cent by 2031 is not on track to be met. Joint Council agreed to escalate this urgent priority and progress work that will achieve improved accountability, coordinated jurisdictional actions and outcomes. It was agreed that Joint Council Co-Chairs write to First Ministers to seek details of how their governments are currently taking steps to meet Target 11, including consideration of remand, alternative accommodation and health and disability care and education in youth justice facilities.(emphasis added).

According to the Productivity Commission Closing the Gap dashboard (link here):  

Nationally in 2022-23, the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people aged 10–⁠17 years in detention on an average day was 29.8 per 10,000 young people in the population (figure CtG11.1). The 2022‑23 rate is above the previous three years (from a low of 23.6 per 10,000 young people in 2020‑21) but it is a decrease from 32.1 per 10,000 young people in 2018‑19 (the baseline year). Nationally, the trend for the target shows no change from the baseline. This assessment is provided with a low level of confidence.

So while current levels of youth detention are less than the baseline, they have been rising in the last year.

The Joint Council response is entirely bureaucratic in nature, and reeks of going through the motions. It is unclear why they focus on youth detention and not also on incarceration more generally. Writing to First Ministers for information that should be in the Implementation Plans required by the National Agreement will take months, and as it turns out, if you dig deep enough in the Productivity Commission dashboard, half of the jurisdictions will be able to point to recent improvements and those that can’t will find some other bureaucratic formulation to describe their efforts as deeply committed and focussed on improving accountability and coordinated consultation to prioritise urgent action….or some such …

The real problem, which goes to the heart of the renegotiated targets under the 2020 National Agreement is that nationally, detention rates for First Nations youth are currently 28.8 per 10,000 compared to mainstream youth detention rates of 1.1 per 10,000. In Queensland, detention rates for First Nations youth are 46 per 10,000. Of particular interest is the fact that in Western Australia in 2010, youth detention rates were 79.7 per 10,000 and have dropped to 34.6 in 2022-23, a halving of the rates over twelve years (although still at levels above the national rate for Indigenous youth detention). I don’t know how WA have achieved that outcome, but that would be a question worth asking. It demonstrates that progress can be made. But the bottom line is that nationally, First Nations youth are 28 times more likely to be in detention than non-Indigenous youth. That is the real issue and the real tragedy. It should be cause for a national strategy to fully (not partially) close the gap, to bring Indigenous youth detention rates down to 1.1 per 10,000. It is worth remembering that these are point-in-time statistics; the levels of Indigenous youth that are placed in detention in any one year will be considerably higher. The current levels of Indigenous youth detention should be a national scandal. And it should be a focus for governments to commission detailed and independent analysis from criminologists, sociologists and anthropologists as well as their policy advisers.

Instead, governments have squibbed the issue by inventing an arbitrary target, with the aim of lowering the detention rate from 32.1 in the baseline year to 22.5 in 2031. Not only did they invent an arbitrary target, they have failed to articulate a coherent national strategy (and coherent state and territory strategies) to meet this arbitrary and inherently unambitious target. By their inaction, they are continuing to squib this issue day in and day out.

This is bad enough. But target 11 under the Closing the Gap process is just one of numerous targets which replicate the same strategy. Invent an arbitrary target that is reasonably achievable; shift the responsibility from the Commonwealth to nine separate jurisdictions each with their own policies and approaches, thus making real accountability impossible. Avoid developing coherent and realistic policy implementation plans by loading them up with hundreds of pages of bureaucratic flim flam, thus avoiding real political accountability.  And whenever an issue arises that emerges into the public consciousness, claim to be concerned and throw a few dollars at it.

So for example, there was no mention by the Joint Council of the challenges related to Target 10 which is framed as follows: By 2031, reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults held in incarceration by at least 15%. The baseline adopted in the National Agreement was from 2019 a convenient and almost surreptitious way of diminishing the magnitude of the trends that point to not only an extraordinary level of hyper-incarceration of First Nations citizens, but a substantial increase in indigenous incarceration rates vis a vis mainstream population rates over the past fifteen years.

Interrogating the dashboard reveals the following key data points:

• Nationally the level of mainstream incarceration in 2023 is 149 per 100,000. It has barely changed from 2009, when the national rate was 137 per 100,000.
• For Indigenous citizens, the national level of incarceration is 2235 per 100,000 in 2023, up from 1539 per 100,000 in 2009.
• In WA, the Indigenous incarceration rate is 3469 per 100,000 in 2023, up from 2817 per 100,000 in 2009.
• In the NT, the Indigenous incarceration rate is 3029 per 100, 000, up from 1700 per 100,000 in 2009.

The national indigenous incarceration rate in 2023 is thus 15 times higher than the mainstream rate. In 2009, it was 11.2 times higher.

While it is difficult to visualise the impact of these statistics, Ben Abbatangelo’s article includes a description of the internal community violence that sporadically breaks out, its consequences for the whole community, and notes, almost in passing, the extraordinary statistic that that today, around 5 percent of the Wadeye’s population is incarcerated.

What I find particularly frustrating is that the blatant hypocrisy of governments, laid out in plain view, fails to resonate in the public domain. Political Oppositions across the federation (whether progressive or conservative) find it easier to look away or pretend that the issue is being dealt with appropriately; after all they hope to be in government at some future date and don’t wish to have made commitments they don’t intend to make meet.

The media (with honourable exceptions mentioned above) largely doesn’t look beyond the scandals or antics of the previous week.

Indigenous citizens become inured to the normalisation of violence in their lives, much of it is lateral violence and fuelled by poorly regulated and controlled alcohol and drugs.

The Indigenous members of the Coalition of Peaks on the Joint Council appear to be unable to see a way to go back to basics and call governments out for their inaction. They fear (probably correctly) that if they were to criticise government too openly, and too directly, they would first be defunded, and ultimately the whole edifice of the National Agreement would be dismantled as it would not be serving its purpose. The risks however are that they will ultimately be tainted by their perceived complicity (link here). And eventually a future, more punitive government will just decide to dismantle the whole edifice wile blaming the victims for the ongoing catastrophe.

Notwithstanding the irony of my reliance on their data in this post, the Productivity Commission blithely compiles and updates a plethora of data and statistics, apparently oblivious to its role in diverting attention from the extent and depth of the real-world crises and challenges confronting First Nations citizens. The Commission’s appears focussed on compiling a profusion of data and statistics which have limited relevance to the lived reality of many First Nations citizens, and no relationship to either policy or the concerns of governments.

For our political class and elites, the whole edifice has become an elaborate exercise in convincing mainstream Australia that our democratically elected governments really do care about First Nations when the reality is that they do not give a fig about closing the gap. In their mistaken and fundamentally narcissistic view, it is just too hard.  

Closing the gap is as much about mainstream Australia as First Nations; it is about changing the way mainstream Australia operates and shares this continent. I don’t claim that there are simple solutions to these issues. They require hard policy work, substantive political commitment, visionary political leadership, an ability to see beyond simplistic ideological humbug, and a sense of empathy and understanding that is exemplified in Australian notions of mateship, concern for the underdog and for a fair go for all. What fundamentally concerns me, to the point of disconsolation, is the deepening realisation that we live in a nation where these ideas no longer reflect who we really are.

 

Addendum: for those who might be interested in a more academic critique of closing the gap that reflects the ideas outlined here, I refer you to a couple of Discussion Papers I wrote in 2021 (link here and link here).

 

 

20 November 2024

amended to corrrect two minor typos (original struck through) 24 November 2024.