Handing down an interim report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal
Deaths in Custody in 1988, Commissioner Muirhead stated that ``humanity and
our country's reputation demand a vigorous approach and new initiatives''.
Seven years after the commission's opening, and four years since it
delivered its final 339 recommendations for sweeping changes to the
judicial, police and penal systems, Aboriginal Australians continue to die
in police cells and prisons.
A key recommendation was that imprisonment be used only as a last resort.
Yet Kooris continue to make up over 15% of those in prison and 25% of those
arrested. Green Left Weekly's CHRIS MARTIN asked Ray Jackson, treasurer,
public officer and management committee coordinator of Sydney's Aboriginal
Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, if anything had changed.
Question: How well do you think the royal commission recommendations have
been implemented?
The recommendations haven't been implemented. Since they were handed down
four years ago, there have been 20 more deaths. The last was young Michael
Sainsbury out at Parklea just before Christmas. It's obvious that the
deaths, the incarceration rates and the police pick-up rates are increasing.
Question: Who do you hold principally to blame?
The government, the police and the corrective services hierarchies. They
should control their workers. If anything, things are getting worse because
the officers are actively trying to resist the changes that the
recommendations could bring about.
Question: What role do you see the committee playing in having the
recommendations implemented?
We've been going since 1987, and this is our first lot of funding. We've
also been blessed by some government departments such as the office of
Aboriginal Affairs, the Aboriginal Justice Advisory Commission, ATSIC and
other groups. They are supporting us in our move to become part of the
notification protocol.
As soon as there's a death in custody, the ALS [Aboriginal Legal Service] is
informed. We are informed to look after the family counselling, the funeral
services and the welfare side. That is how it should be. As an extension of
that, we're pushing for the proper utilisation of those recommendations.
We've just spent a day at Long Bay [jail] and asked the bureaucracy there
why there are no education facilities whatsoever, despite it being part of
the recommendations. We're setting up a meeting with the boss of the
education system within the Department of Corrective Services to find out
what they are doing and why they aren't utilising the recommendations.
Question: What do you see for the future? Do you expect more funding?
Our submission to ATSIC for 1995-96 is for an increase of seven workers.
That will give us two case workers for the country jails, two for the
metropolitan jails and one for the juvenile justice centres. This will mean
that there'll be a spotlight on the prison service virtually 24 hours per
day, seven days per week.
Question: How important do you think this scrutiny is?
Very important, because without it the officers do what they want. We got a
call-out up to Grafton. One of the brothers said, if you don't get up here
within a week there's going to be body bags going out. It'll either be us or
them - them being the screws. We dispatched a couple of people; it's
horrendous up there.
At the moment we've only got one case worker trying to cover all the
metropolitan jails. He can't handle it, which is why we need the other case
workers. One of them has to be a grief counsellor, because when there is a
death in custody we want to be able to have our own grief counsellors - a
Koori grief counsellor - to go out and stay with that family, for weeks if
need be, on pay. There's not one Koori grief counsellor in NSW.
Question: Why do you think so little has been achieved by the authorities?
One of the issues raised by the House of Representatives Standing Committee
was, of the $400 million that was handed down [by the federal government to
state and territory governments to deal with deaths in custody], something
in excess of $100 million cannot be accounted for.
Where has that money gone? One hundred million can just go walkabout, and
there's not even so much as an eyebrow raised.
The money's been used to ``tackle'' the problem but it depends on what level
you look at it. Some people might say that having all the top cops in
Australia go to an Alice Springs motel outside Uluru for three weeks so they
can come up with a 20-page document full of motherhood statements all paid
for out of deaths in custody money is at least something. To us it's
nothing.
Question: The Watch Committee has an all-Aboriginal Management Committee.
Why is that important to the group?
We do, and will, jealously guard our autonomy. Even though we might be
photographed by the Department of Corrective Services and we wear a
Department of Corrective Service badge, we are the Watch Committee first and
foremost. This is explained to every group that we are dealing with.
The all-Aboriginal management committee is the key. We make the decisions
and run the committee, although we do have lot of support from
non-Aboriginals. Even if we go arse over head on some things (which we
will), it is our decision, no-one else's. It is very important that
Aboriginal people have this empowerment to run their own lives and their own
organisations in their own way.
Question: What are your other plans?
ATSIC has backed the Watch Committee and told us they want us to organise
the NSW families [of those who have died in custody] conference. This will
involve 35 families meeting for three days on the queen's birthday weekend
at the Tharawal Land Council at Thirroul.
The families will be deciding what they want. Obviously a lot will want
compensation of some kind. Equally, they are going to want justice given
that their son or daughter was [a victim of] foul play within the prison or
the police system.
We're also trying to reopen the Eddie Murray case. We have lodged a
submission with ATSIC for funding to investigate the legal arguments to have
that case reopened.
Question: Finally, what does invasion day mean to you?
Invasion day is a commemoration of a lot of wasted lives, a total bloody
waste of our people. Every time there's a death in custody, or a kid is not
looked after health-wise or education-wise, that waste continues. All
invasion day does is commemorate that waste.
[The office of the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee is open
Monday to Friday, 9.00am until late at Room 34, 1st Floor, Trades Hall, 4
Goulburn St, Sydney.]
First posted on the Pegasus conference greenleft.news by Green Left Weekly.
Correspondence and subsciption inquiries: greenleft@peg.apc.org