“Jumbunna has identified systemic racism and the lack of cultural safety in government as significant drivers of the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples in the criminal justice system,” writes Aboriginal leader JULIE TONGS.

The extent and depth of disadvantage endured by the Aboriginal community of the ACT has been brutally exposed by two recently released reports prepared by the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.

The reports expose the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prison and in touch with the criminal justice system. 

The first of the two reports is a detailed 120-page analysis of the ACT government’s response, or  lack thereof, to a report issued by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in 2017, titled Pathways to Justice-Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Jumbunna has reported that of the 37 individual recommendations in the ALRC report, the government has, in the eight years since its release, only bothered to implement 14 of them and, of those 14 recommendations, Jumbunna advises that the assessment that the recommendation has been implemented is subject to a caveat.

Jumbunna has also reported: “The level of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander over-representation in the ACT justice system has grown significantly, by 27 per cent since 2017 and is much higher than the national average.”

In a raft of commentary related to community satisfaction with police and police integrity, the ACT has the second lowest proportion (after the NT) of adults who reported they were satisfied with the services provided by police.

The level of satisfaction has in fact fallen by 10 per cent since 2017. In relation to the question of whether “police treated people fairly and equally” the ACT has the second lowest proportion of adults in Australia (after the NT) who agreed with the statement.

Jumbunna also reported that in 2023, the ACT had the lowest proportional use of youth diversion for all young people in Australia and that for Aboriginal young people in the ACT the situation was particularly worrying with only 10 per cent of Aboriginal youth diverted compared to 30 per cent of non-Aboriginal youth (the lowest rate in Australia – it is three times lower than in NSW, Victoria, WA and the NT).

In a deeply disturbing revelation Jumbunna also reports: “It is important to recognise that there was no explicit response by the ACT government to the ALRC report, nor any explicit undertaking or commitment to implement all or in part any of the ALRC recommendations. 

“There is no comprehensive government plan or other document related to the ALRC report against which the implementation of recommendations might be measured, other than the recommendations themselves.”

The concerns expressed by Jumbunna about the ACT government’s apparent lack of commitment to and tardiness in the implementation of the recommendations of the ALRC report raise, inevitably and concerningly, the question of the degree of its commitment to the recommendations and findings of the Jumbunna review into the over-representation of First Nations People in the ACT criminal justice system.

The Jumbunna Review is more than 400 pages and contains around 100 recommendations for change. It is without doubt the most comprehensive and important inquiry into any aspect of the ACT criminal justice system ever undertaken. 

It is imperative that the ACT government make an unambiguous commitment to the implementation of all of the report recommendations and that this report not suffer the same fate as the ALRC report.

Jumbunna has identified systemic racism and the lack of cultural safety in government as significant drivers of the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples in the criminal justice system.

This finding is followed by a recommendation that the ACT government conduct and publish, with First Nations input and oversight, an initial independent targeted systemic review of JACS and its agencies, including ACT Policing and ACT Corrective Services.

The recommendation further provides that other directorates that influence or impact First Nations justice outcomes including, but not limited to, CSD, Education, Health and Housing should be similarly subjected to detailed and exhaustive review.

This recommendation, indeed, along with the remaining 100 or so should be adopted without delay.

Julie Tongs, CEO of the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services.