Australian Indigenous Law Reporter
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December, 1996
The Ombudsman's report arose from an extensive inquiry into the care and treatment of detainees in NSW juvenile detention centres. The inquiry was originally requested by the NSW Government in July 1995. The aims of the inquiry were to determine how well current policies, procedures and practices accord with rational and international standards; to identify problem areas in administrative processes; and to make recommendations for improvement of detention centres. The two volume report covers a range of topics including legislation and treaties, detainee characteristics, environment and accommodation, interaction with the community, management practices and staff issues.
The Chapter reproduced is specifically related to Aboriginal young people in detention centres.
8.1 On 29 February, 1996, young Aboriginal people made up one quarter of the young people in juvenile justice detention centres in New South Wales despite constituting only 1.9 per cent of the total New South Wales population. Young Aboriginal women constituted 12.5 per cent of the total number of young women detained at that date. The detention centres with the highest Aboriginal populations were Riverina (50 per cent), Kariong (36 per cent), and Minda (30 per cent).
8.2 The over-representation of Aboriginal young people in the NSW juvenile justice system is an issue which has been a matter of grave concern for many years and has been the subject of investigation by many State and Commonwealth inquiries [1] . As recently as March 1996 Amnesty International released a Declaration condemning Australia's "systematic discrimination" against Aborigines who still have disproportionately high rates of arrest, detention and deaths in custody. A spokesperson for Amnesty was quoted as saying "we are appalled to see what little progress has been made in addressing these abuses since our last visit to Australia in 1992." [2]
8.3 Luke and Cunneen in their study3 into the NSW juvenile justice system said that over-representation of young Aboriginal people progressively increased with each successive point of police and judicial discretion, with higher levels of over-representation at the point of the most severe outcomes, such as detention orders. They further noted that, in their sample, comparisons between young Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal indicated that Aboriginal offenders were younger and tended to have their first formal contact with juvenile justice agencies at an earlier age. Consequently, young Aboriginal people are more likely to accumulate a more extensive prior record, which will influence subsequent police and judicial discretionary decisions. The Aboriginal population is more rural, and is more likely to appear before non-specialist Children's Courts. Aboriginal young people had much longer criminal records and a higher rate of previous institutionalisation. The Juvenile Justice Advisory Council's Green Paper on Future Directions for Juvenile justice in New South Wales noted similar police and judicial patterns in relation to legal outcomes for Aboriginal young people and concluded that Aboriginal young people receive more punitive interventions than non Aboriginal young people. [4]
8.4 There is also reason to believe that the over representation of Aboriginal young women is even greater than that for Aboriginal young men. Research into the criminal records of over one thousand delinquent girls in New South Wales found that the single most over represented cohort came from rural Aboriginal communities. [5] An analysis of the area of origin of the six Aboriginal young women in detention between 1-14 December 1995 showed a similar pattern. Only one young woman resided in the Sydney metropolitan area, the others came from Walgett, Deniliquin, Moree, Wagga and Queanbeyan.
8.5 The reasons for Aboriginal young people's over representation in the juvenile justice system are many and complex covering socio-economic factors affecting Aboriginal people and communities. Research into the link between the type of socio-economic disadvantage suffered by Aboriginal people and crime, undertaken by the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, stated that "socio-economic disadvantage ... would seem to provide fertile conditions for potential offenders. [6] The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody noted that "the deliberate and systematic disempowerment of Aboriginal people starting with dispossession from their land and proceeding to almost aspect every of their life is of central importance to the issue of aboriginal over representation in custody". [7]
8.6 A submission to the Inquiry by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, notes that a number of key international instruments have as one of their fundamental principles that imprisonment of juveniles should be an option of last resort.8 However, he goes on to state that:
Commitments to comply with the UN instruments endorsing this principle ... must be called into question in the light of the continued over-representation of indigenous young people in custody. At any one time, roughly 30 per cent of the `clients' at Minda Juvenile Justice Centre ... are Aboriginal young people between the ages of 10 and 17 years yet indigenous children represent less than 1.9 percent of the juvenile population of New South Wales. The over-representation of indigenous juveniles ... in NSW is remarkably high (indigenous juveniles are 17.3 times more likely to be held in detention in NSW than non-indigenous juveniles). these figures indicate that the administration of juvenile justice in NSW fails to comply with the nationally and internationally accepted and endorsed requirement that juveniles be imprisoned as an option of last resort.
8.7 The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner's submission to the Inquiry raised a number of other specific issues:
* the need to address bail legislation and the terms on which bail is granted to Aboriginal people to ensure better diversionary polices;
* sentencing policies by magistrates, especially NSW rural magistrates;
* the NSW Government's law and order policies such as the Children (Parental Responsibility) Act 1994 (NSW) and policing practices on Aboriginal children and their families, which the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission argues are in clear breach of the nation's obligations at international law;
* the establishment of bail hostels and alternative accommodation placements; and
* better diversionary policies and strategies to address issues of indirect discrimination against Aboriginal young people.
8.8 The Inquiry acknowledges that the continuing over-representation of Aboriginal young people in the juvenile justice system is a matter for grave concern. However, consideration and comment on the social, legal and economic issues, such as those listed above, and what strategies are needed to reverse this situation is outside of the ambit of this Inquiry. The focus of this report will be to comment on how well the needs-of Aboriginal juveniles are met within New South Wales detention centres.
8.9 The findings of the Inquiry relating to detainees' communications with family and friends and the level of community contact with juvenile justice detention centres are covered in some detail in this report (see ss. 5.2.7 and 5.5.2).
8.10 The crucial importance of keeping young detainees in contact with their families and communities, wherever possible, has been commented on by all the major reviews into juvenile justice. The Department of Juvenile Justice also publicly acknowledges the importance of this contact. The Department of Juvenile Justice's Charter of Principles states "families and extended families should be recognised as the fundamental influence upon children and should be given support and opportunities to participate in the juvenile justice process." [9]
8.11 The United Nations rules state that every means should be provided to ensure juveniles have adequate communication with the outside world. They should have the right to receive regular and frequent visits (at least twice a week) and they should also have the right to communicate in writing or by phone at least twice a week with the person of their choice unless legally restricted. The Inquiry found in its analysis of the level of visits received by detainees that the Department of juvenile justice was in breach of this minimum standard for 90 per cent of the detainees that were in detention in a two week period in December, 1995. In the same period the Inquiry found when reviewing the level of telephone contact that detainees had with family and friends, that 76 per cent of young people in detention in New South Wales had substantially less telephone contact than that recommended in the United Nations standards.
8.12 Research seems to support the Inquiry's findings. In a study conducted in late 1994, 33 Aboriginal young offenders in three juvenile justice detention centres in New South Wales were interviewed about their experiences of juvenile justice [10] . The research found that:
Most of the difficulties encountered by the young offenders while incarcerated centred around lack of contact with their families. Over one third stated that they missed their families. Eight respondents were as far as ten or more hours from their home and community, making visits from family members difficult. Eight said they had received no visits from their families, while two stated it had been fifteen and eighteen months respectively since they had seen their families. Contact was maintained by telephone but this was often restricted to two phone calls a week and the difficulties were further compounded by the fact that not all families had access to a telephone.
8.13 The Inquiry found that even when Aboriginal families managed to get to the detention centres to visit their children, staff in some centres were not as supportive and flexible as they should be in ensuring that the families actually saw their children. One Aboriginal worker told the Inquiry that:
There is an issue about family visits. Koori families turn up without an appointment, often after travelling a long way and are refused entry. Kariong is pretty good, but Minda has lots of different rules, some families can visit for 20 minutes, others all day. Whoever is the first point of contact can make an enormous difference. If it's an arrogant centre worker, what happens is you get instant family worry -- is this what it's like for my kid?" [11]
8.14 An area where the Department of Juvenile Justice does perform very well, is in the assistance that it provides for Aboriginal detainees to attend important family occasions, especially funerals. The Inquiry noted during the course of its visits to detention centres that where humanly possible, centre staff ensured that Aboriginal detainees obtained leave to visit their families and/or communities when critical family situations arose, even to the extent of hiring light planes to take detainees out to remote mission stations. One Aboriginal worker told the Inquiry:
I would praise the Department's actions in relation to Koori funerals and births. Mt Penang and Kariong bend over backwards to get kids to funerals and fathers to the birth of their children -- they get 11 out of 10. In one case that I know of the mother of a detainee was in hospital and pronounced brain dead. This happened at a time when there had been a breakthrough for the kid the day before when he had decided to talk to her and apologise for his crimes. The Department organised with the hospital for her to stay on life support so the kid could say goodbye and drove him there in record time. [12]
8.15 The Inquiry found that detainees from rural areas of New South Wales are especially affected by the lack of contact with the outside world, and it appears that, in particular, Aboriginal detainees do not have the level of contact with their families and communities that would be optimum. Some of the particular circumstances affecting Aboriginal detainees family and community contact are the location of juvenile justice detention centres and methods of communication eg lack of a telephone by some Aboriginal families and the low literacy rates of detainees can make writing letters problematic. The Department of Juvenile Justice falls short of the minimum standards for family contact required by the United Nations Rules.
8.16 When the Inquiry analysed the area of origin of young Aboriginal people in custody on 29 February 1996 it found that a large majority who were in detention centres in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong came from the North Coast, New England and Far West areas of New South Wales, especially towns such as Moree, Kempsey, Purfleet, Coffs Harbour, Dubbo, Deniliquin and Lismore. This reflects a pattern similar to that noted by the Juvenile Justice Advisory Council in 1993 when it noted that the majority of Aboriginal detainees at that time came from country areas of New South Wales, and in particular, Moree, Taree/Purfleet, Dubbo and Albury. [13]
8.17 The Inquiry finds that young Aboriginal detainees are being detained in juvenile justice detention centres that are a considerable distance from their families and communities and this exacerbates the feelings of alienation, isolation and resentment which these young people experience. One Aboriginal detainee interviewed by the Inquiry said he had been at Mt Penang for eight or nine months with no visitors, "I never get any visitors, no-one cares that I'm here". The ex-chief magistrate of the Children's Court stated in his submission to the Inquiry:
New South Wales is geographically large, posing particular difficulties for the citing of detention centres. It must be agreed that when detention is necessary that ought to occur at a location to which the offenders' family has access and which will enable a detainee to maintain other positive links. [14]
8.18 The issue of whether or not new juvenile justice detention centres should be built and where they should be located is a difficult question. Many comments were made to the Inquiry about the likelihood of new juvenile justice detention centres being constructed in areas such as Dubbo or on the North Coast.
8.19 The major concerns about these new centres is the likelihood that they would increase the total juvenile justice detention centre population, and that because of their location in areas with large Aboriginal populations, that they would be filled with young Aboriginal detainees. Typical of the concerns held by many people was made by a solicitor in the Aboriginal Legal Service.
I have problems with the opening of small centres in rural areas, it's an incentive for magistrates to charge and lock up Koori kids. The type of offending behaviour that Koori kids are detained for should be looked at especially car stealing. We need community based programs to address that behaviour. Detention is just like a holding pen. [15]
Similarly a juvenile justice worker told the Inquiry that:
If a centre is built in Dubbo, it will just fill up with Koori kids. Putting centres out north or west will ensure more Koori kids are locked up. This happened with the Girls Program at Yasmar, it filled up quickly as magistrates saw it was a good program to assist girls who weren't getting help elsewhere. [16]
An Aboriginal Education Assistant at one of the metropolitan detention centres said:
We don't really need more centres, I hope they set up units to support the kids in their own communities. [17]
The ex chief magistrate of the Children's Court said in relation to building new detention centres at Dubbo and Lismore:
While these centres may be comparatively `closer' for detainees than current metropolitan centres, in many cases the difficulties of access for families will be perceived by them as little less. The citing of centres at Dubbo and Lismore necessarily are catchments for towns with significant Aboriginal populations and there is a real risk that they will be perceived by the Aboriginal community and others as `Aboriginal juvenile prisons' rather than according with the principle of family access. [18]
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner in his submission to the Inquiry made two recommendations relating to this issue:
* That the Department of Juvenile Justice be required to take into account the principle of placing an indigenous child who has been given a custody order as close as possible to his or her family and community; and
* The Commissioner does not recommend an increase in the number and geographic spread of detention centres, instead there should be a proliferation of indigenous community based programs for Aboriginal young offenders.
8.20 By contrast other Aboriginal people and organisations who discussed this issue with the Inquiry appeared to support smaller detention centres in rural areas, in order to ensure that Aboriginal detainees retained better contact with their families and communities, and also to ensure that younger, and less sophisticated, Aboriginal detainees were not "contaminated" in metropolitan juvenile justice detention centres through mixing with older, more "street wise" young offenders. One Aboriginal health worker told the Inquiry that:
The possibility of new centres at Dubbo and on the North Coast will be okay if the reason the Department says it is putting them there is the real reason, ie, that Koori kids are kept close to their communities. We need to look at who stipulates where they will go if they get control orders, if a magistrate sends a kid to Mt Penang from the North Coast it's defeating the purpose of keeping kids close to home, and what is the Department of Juvenile Justice going to do about these kinds of orders if, in fact, they do happen? If a kid is sentenced and is a first timer, it's good to base the family there to be with him, it lessens the stress and may reduce self harm.19
8.21 In another submission an Aboriginal worker said:
New South Wales doesn't do enough in the way of alternatives to detention centres. The centres don't address the real needs of the kids and what happens is the kids go into these places and, in effect, become displaced kids outside their own culture but not really part of white culture either. They become the `lost victims', they don't know who they are or where they come from. [20]
8.22 After consideration of all the issues relating to the building of new smaller juvenile justice detention centres in rural areas of New South Wales, and acknowledging the major concerns raised above, the Inquiry recommends that the Department of Juvenile Justice should develop smaller detention centres in the non-metropolitan areas of the state. The major reason for this recommendation is that the Inquiry believes that retaining Aboriginal detainees' contact with their families and their cultural links with their communities, is the most important and overriding principle which should be applied. As the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody stated in 1991:
The problems affecting Aboriginal juveniles are so widespread and have such potentially disastrous repercussions for the future that there is an urgent need for governments and Aboriginal organisations to negotiate together to devise strategies designed to reduce the rate at which Aboriginal juveniles are involved in the welfare and criminal justice systems and, in particular, to reduce the rate at which Aboriginal juveniles are separated from their families and communities, whether by being declared to be in need of care, detained, imprisoned or otherwise. [21]
8.23 A case study of Aboriginal girls detained at Yasmar made in a submission to the inquiry highlights the importance of close family and community support for Aboriginal young people: [22]
The Commissioner noted that Aboriginal girls detained at Yasmar are provided with an Aboriginal Support Group for one hour a week as well as other specific educational programs. However, the Aboriginal girls interviewed by Commission staff implied that this was still insufficient to foster and protect the cultural identity within the centre. One young woman interviewed stated that she found detention in Yasmar particularly difficult because she bad never been with so many "white" people before and aside from the other Koori girls had no-one she could easily look to for support on a day to day basis. It is worth considering this young woman's comment in some context. She has been totally removed from her family, her community and her country. The provision of indigenous specific cultural education and support programs within the centre can in no way compensate her for the loss of culture which is the result of her removal to a juvenile justice detention centre. The unique impact that removal has on [an] indigenous young offender when considered in the context of indigenous culture and the long history of removal policies which have specifically affected indigenous people and their social structures and culture cannot possibly be dealt with by the superficial provision of "cultural" programs within a centre.
8.24 It is important to recognise that the needs of Aboriginal communities throughout New South Wales are not homogeneous. Each community has a particular history with differing needs and priorities. Accordingly, services and programs for Aboriginal juveniles must be developed at the local community level in order to ensure that they are relevant, supported by the community and targeted to community needs.
8.25 If the Department of Juvenile Justice decides to build new smaller detention centres in rural areas of New South Wales, the Inquiry further recommends that the Department should work towards ensuring that this does not lead to any increase in the number of Aboriginal young people in detention through developing more extensive diversionary programs for Aboriginal young people in conjunction with Aboriginal communities; that better pre-release and more extensive post release support is provided for these young people back in their communities; and that on-going consultations take place between the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Children's Court magistrates to ensure that everything possible is done to develop acceptable strategies to ensure that Aboriginal young people do not continue to be over represented in the juvenile justice system.
8.26 Education, training and other programs in juvenile justice detention centres have been reviewed by the Inquiry and information on these are in Chapter 18 of this report.
8.27 The Inquiry in its visits to juvenile justice detention centres noted that all of the detention centres run programs for Aboriginal detainees such as Aboriginal Studies, Aboriginal Art and Culture. The Department of School Education schools within the centres also run educational programs specifically targeted to Aboriginal young offenders eg Aboriginal Studies. Mt Penang also provides access to TAFE courses in Painting and Decorating, Carpentry and Sports Medicine Awareness specifically for Aboriginal students and well as Aboriginal Cultural Days and Aboriginal Week activities. In addition, two centres Minda and Reiby have Aboriginal Homework Centres which appear to the Inquiry to be well attended and enjoyed by Aboriginal detainees. The Department's Annual Report listed a number of projects scheduled to commence during 1995/96. Most were related to pre-custody diversionary projects. One, however, related to Aboriginal detainees, a program to involved [sic] Aboriginal organisations and personnel providing counselling services to Aboriginal offenders, particularly those in custody. It is understood that the Department of Juvenile Justice is still trying to establish this counselling service but has been unable to recruit an Aboriginal counsellor with appropriate qualifications. In cases of real need the Department is currently calling on their Aboriginal chaplain to visit the detainee or making contact with his or her family or community to see if anyone there can assist by visiting and talking to the detainee. [23]
8.28 Despite the Department of Juvenile Justice's professed support for social and cultural programs to be conducted by Aboriginal organisations, the Inquiry found that Juvenile Justice detention centres are failing badly in not involving Aboriginal organisations in detention centres' operations and programs. The Inquiry found that this is especially the case with local Aboriginal communities. As outlined elsewhere in this report visits from community organisations appear to be undertaken on an ad hoc basis rather than being part of a broader strategy on the part of detention centres to encourage community interaction with the centres. Of all organisations the Aboriginal Legal Service and the Aboriginal Medical Service visited centres most frequently in the two week period reviewed by the Inquiry. The centres with the highest number of Aboriginal detainees such as Mt Penang, Cobham and Riverina did not receive extensive visits from Aboriginal organisations. An Aboriginal worker in one of the Sydney metropolitan detention centres told the Inquiry "we don't get many metropolitan Koori kids in here, most, say 80 per cent are rural kids. We try and get as many Aboriginal agencies as possible in here to help the kids." [24]
8.29 The importance of having representatives from Aboriginal communities visiting young people from their community is to ensure that detainees have access to culturally appropriate programs: those that meet the particular cultural needs of that young Aboriginal person. Aboriginal communities are not homogeneous and programs for Aboriginal young people need to reflect differing cultural needs and be targeted to particular communities. It is a mistaken belief on the part of the Department of Juvenile Justice to assume that any Aboriginal group can, in fact, provide the appropriate cultural support for young Aboriginal detainees who may be from quite different Aboriginal cultures depending on where their home country is.
8.30 Another issue raised with the Inquiry by Aboriginal detainees and Aboriginal organisations is the low numbers of Aboriginal people working in juvenile justice detention centres, especially in the current situation of high proportional over representation of Aboriginal young people in the juvenile justice system.
8.31 ... the proportion of Aboriginal workers to other workers in juvenile justice detention centres and in relation to the number of Aboriginal detainees is very low. This is important as Aboriginal detainees generally commented to the Inquiry that they find it easier to relate to Aboriginal workers:
It would be good, cos every time I get into trouble and I tell them they say why didn't you talk to someone, I say there was no Aboriginal worker on. I was brought up with Aboriginal people and I can talk to them easier, I can communicate with them. I can't explain myself to white people but with Aboriginals, we sit there and have a good conversation with them and tell them how I'm feeling and that I can't do that with white people.
8.32 The majority of Aboriginal workers within the centres are youth workers, although there is one Aboriginal case worker at Reiby and the Department has recently appointed an Aboriginal Manager at Yasmar. An Aboriginal worker explained to the Inquiry the difficulties the Department faces in recruiting Aboriginal workers:
We don't have enough Koori workers here, but it's probably worse in other centres. There aren't many Koori detention centre workers, they work in the community side of the department. They want Koori workers in juvenile justice but they want them to go through literacy tests. But the Department needs to realise that for many Aboriginals over, say 30 years of age, they faced a lot of discrimination at school. I desperately tried to get an Aboriginal woman to apply for a youth worker position, but she was terrified of taking the literacy test. We need some affirmative action program to get Aboriginal workers in here. Give them remissions for the literacy and numeracy tests but support them and train them up. [25]
8.33 This view was supported in a submission to the Inquiry by an Aboriginal heath worker who said:
Why is there only one Aboriginal case worker in the whole system? The Department of Juvenile Justice needs to drop their so-called qualifications for Koori workers. Koori workers experience (is not so much to do with formal qualifications) but because they have lived the reality that the Koori kids experience. In the Aboriginal Medical Service's health worker program, Aborigines are given an oral test and the Service gets them trained in reading and writing. [26]
8.34 The other issue related to the employment of Aboriginal workers noted by the Inquiry and which was also raised in a number of submissions, was that in some centres there appears to be a practice of employing black workers who are not Aboriginal. A solicitor with the Aboriginal Legal Service told the Inquiry that "my kids are scared of going to Minda, there are big problems with the staff they are employing and there is antagonism between Aboriginal detainees and Islander people working there. There is a hell of a lot of responsibility put on Aboriginal workers once they join the Department, but we need more Aboriginal workers". [27] Another submission to the Inquiry stressed that this is very much an issue about culture, "many workers lack cultural awareness, what is needed is appropriate workers with cultural awareness. The system is just not sensitive to cultural issues." [28] The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner notes in his submission that:
Rule 22.2 of the Beijing Rules requires that "juvenile justice personnel shall reflect the diversity of juveniles who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. Efforts should be made to ensure the fair representation of minorities in juvenile justice agencies". Despite its official commitment to this principle it was stated in interviews with staff from my office, that the Department of Juvenile Justice finds it difficult to keep indigenous staff in juvenile justice detention centres. One senior staff member at Minda stated that "it is difficult to keep Aboriginal identified positions filled".
This situation is of particular concern when considered in the context of indigenous over representation in the juvenile justice system. In visits to Minda and Yasmar (we were) repeatedly told by staff and detainees, that the hiring of staff "who are not white" was often seen as an adequate alternative to filling positions with Aboriginal staff. It must be stressed that employing Aboriginal staff is not just part of "multiculturalism". It is racist to assume that all "black" people belong to one category ... Employing "non-whites' is inadequate to comply with international and national standards (and) it is inadequate to fulfil the Department's own objectives.
8.35 The Inquiry did find that, in some centres, difficulties in recruiting, employing and retaining Aboriginal workers had led to the employment of "non white" workers from other cultures. At times, this did appear to lead to tense situations with Aboriginal detainees in those centres. Whilst acknowledging the difficulties the Department of Juvenile Justice has experienced in employing Aboriginal workers, the Inquiry recommends that the Department review its employment practices in regard to Aboriginal workers and consider strategies to recruit, support and train Aboriginal people to work in juvenile justice detention centres.
It is recommended that:
R 8.1 The Department of Juvenile Justice construct small juvenile justice detention centres in areas closest to those locations where the majority of Aboriginal young offenders originate from.
R 8.2 The Department develop strategies to ensure, as far as possible within the responsibilities of the Department, that the establishment of regional detention centres does not lead to any increase in the number of Aboriginal young people in detention. Such strategies should include:
* developing more diversionary programs for Aboriginal young offenders;
* providing better pre and post-release support for Aboriginal detainees;
* including in performance measures for Juvenile Justice Community Services specific targets for a decrease in the number of Aboriginal juveniles given custodial sentences; and
* ongoing consultations between the Department and the Children's Court magistrates to ensure Aboriginal young people do not continue to be over represented in the juvenile justice system.
R 8.3 As part of its case management policies, the Department review the level of family contact, both visits and telephone calls, received by Aboriginal detainees in order to ensure that it meets minimum international standards;
R 8.4 The Department of Juvenile Justice develop strategies to ensure the better involvement of Aboriginal organisations and communities in the activities of juvenile detention centres and juvenile justice community services;
R 8.5 The Department review its recruitment, selection and training strategies in relation to Aboriginal workers to ensure greater employment of Aboriginal people in juvenile detention centres;
R 8.6 The Department ensure that people from cultures other than Aboriginal cultures are not employed in specified Aboriginal positions;
R 8.7 All centre workers receive training in Aboriginal cultural issues.
[1] Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, National Report, Vol 2, Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1991; Office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Third Report, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Canberra, October, 1995; NSW Legislative Council Standing Committee on Social Issues, Report No. 4, Juvenile Justice in New South Wales, May, 1992. Juvenile Justice Advisory Council of NSW (JJAC), Green Paper on Future Directions for Juvenile Justice in New South Wales, February, 1993.
[2] "Amnesty Condemns Aboriginal Injustices" Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March, 1996, p. 5.
[3] Garth Luke and Chris Cuneen, Aboriginal Over Representation and Discretionary Decisions in the NSW Juvenile Justice System, Juvenile Justice Advisory council of NSW, January, 1995.
[4] Juvenile Justice Advisory Council of NSW, op cit, p. 201.
[5] Kerry Carrington, "The Criminalisation of Otherness": Aboriginal Girls and Juvenile Justice, Paper presented to Public Interest Law Conference, Sydney University Law School, 16 September 1994.
[6] Quoted in Ibid.
[7] Quoted in Ibid.
[8] Mr Michael Dodson, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity commission, Submission to the Inquiry, February 1996, pp. 2-4. The international treaties quoted are Art. 37(b) Convention on the Rights of the Child, Rule 1 of the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, Part III Rule 19.1 and Rule 17.1(b) of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (commonly known as the Beijing Rules).
[9] Department of Juvenile Justice, Annual Report 1994-95, Focusing on Effective Intervention, Sydney, p. 2.
[10] Submission to the Inquiry, 15 December 1995.
[11] Aboriginal Health Worker.
[12] Ibid.
[13] JJAC, op cit.
[14] Rod Blackmore, ex senior magistrate, Children's Court, Submission to the Inquiry.
[15] Solicitor, Redfern Aboriginal Legal Service.
[16] Officer, Department of Juvenile Justice.
[17] Aboriginal Education Assistant.
[18] Rod Blackmore, ex senior magistrate, Children's Court, Submission to the Inquiry.
[19] Aboriginal Health Worker, Aboriginal Medical Service.
[20] Aboriginal Health Worker.
[21] Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, National Report Vol 2, AGPS, 1991, p. 252.
[22] Submission to the Inquiry from Mr Michael Dodson, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, February 1996, p. 13.
[23] Officer, Department of Juvenile Justice.
[24] Aboriginal Worker, Detention Centre.
[25] Aboriginal Worker, Detention Centre.
[26] Aboriginal Health Worker, Aboriginal Medical Service.
[27] Solicitor, Redfern Aboriginal Legal Service.
[28] Submission to the Inquiry.
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