He was 18 years old, didn’t have a driver’s license but had his L plates and a hot Ford Falcon. He worked in a bar and after work, with a few drinks under the belt went to drive home with a couple of close friends as passengers. The car was pretty powerful and he did like the thrill of screeching tyres under acceleration, lost control, one passenger is now a quadriplegic, the other died at the scene. He was sentenced to five years in prison and life was tough. He got into a bit of trouble fighting off a bullying inmate, was moved to another prison and was denied bail when half his sentence had been served.
His parents, suburban, working people, mortgaged their home to pay the legal bills.
He is now out of prison, works, has a partner and has started a family with her. But life continues to throw its challenges. Part of his sentence has precluded him from ever getting a driver’s licence, and the other life sentence he carries is the grief and trauma from the tragedy a moment’s stupidity caused.
Unfortunately, that is not a made up story, but a real life experience of a workmate’s nephew. The good news for the young man is that he has been able to find work and make a new life, he has the support of family and friends, but the pain of the accident lives with him day after day. The memories of a friend who died and a young woman confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life fill his waking thoughts and invade his dreams.
Prisons here are overcrowded, dozens of prisoners in Western Australian goals are forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor because of overcrowding. Sixty two in Hakea Prison which houses mainly prisoners on remand and a further 17 at the state’s maximum security prison at Casuarina, according to an answer to a question in Parliament recently.
Western Australia has the highest rate of incarceration of the states; 363.6 per 100,00 of population, but the highest overall is the Northern Territory at 1,106.9 people per 100,000. Victoria has the least at 120.9 per 100,000. From the statistics I have been able to find, the overall average for Australia is 157 per 100,000. The cost for being tough on crime, but not looking to reduce crime is high. In Australia the annual cost of keeping a person in prison is $153,895 per year according to Institute of Public affairs.
We are in the top 50 nations who have high imprisonment rates. The USA has a rate of 541, UK 140. Among the lower in Europe, Germany has a rate of 68 and The Netherlands about 56 per 100,000.
It would appear from those numbers that the USA is very tough on crime and yet finds that they cannot find enough prisons to handle the ever increasing demand. In Australia, another country which has a relatively high incarceration rate, prisons are full to overflowing, as they are in the UK.
Interestingly, in The Netherlands, 23 prisons have been closed in recent years. The incarceration rate has dropped from one of the highest in the EU in 2005 the lowest. The prison population from 2005 to 2015 dropped 44%. The rate of criminal activity been reduced, most notably in recidivism.
So the big question is how has The Netherlands managed to reduce its prison population so dramatically that more than half the prisons have been closed down and reduced the crime rate? Are they soft on crime perhaps, have they turned a blind eye to ten year olds breaking stuff or threatening teenagers with ‘adult time for adult crime’? Or have they found another way of dealing with people who commit crimes?
An interesting question addressed was ‘Do prison sentences do more harm than good?’
And for some serious offences and serious offenders, there really is no alternative but to lock them away. However, for less serious offences, non-violent offences, suspended sentences, and coupled with community service allows the offender to continue life, probably keep his or her job and stay connected within the community, knowing that the slightest infringement means time locked away.
Harsh sentences on the other hand do little to solve but instead tend to perpetuate social issues which so often are root cause of crimes. They also tend to criminalise people with mental issues, such as infant alcohol syndrome which affects many, particularly Indigenous children and severe social issues as they grow older.
To consider the causes of crime and criminality can lead to better outcomes.
Grog War by Alexis Wright is about how Aboriginal Elders in Tennent Creek dealt with the problems of alcohol and the struggle it took to get simple, sensible alcohol restrictions in that town in the 1990s. When we look at the rate of imprisonment in the Northern Territory, so many are locked up for drunk and disorderly behaviour, the rate of domestic violence associated with alcohol abuse is high, the neglect of children because of alcohol abuse leads to criminal behaviour, the consequence of poverty and that pension day is a good day to buy grog and get shit faced. Bugger the groceries. And it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that as an issue in other centres with large Indigenous populations, and that is reflected in the incarceration rates. For a while, it seemed there was hope that the problems could be solved, but the sale of grog and the businesses supported by alcohol are far more significant than solving the problems created by them.
Recently, in preparation for the state election in March next year, I was door knocking with the local candidate and some friends, including a young woman from Zimbabwe. When she asked one of the people who answered the knock on the door, the resident explained that an urgent issue which needed addressing was the increase in crime, ‘particularly from the black Africans who have invaded this area’ she was quick to point out to my friend who sported ‘Yes, I am black’ ear rings.
There is no evidence to support that assertion. Immigrants are generally under represented in prison populations while Aboriginal people are over represented.
Perceptions are interesting, so is where people get their news from and how they form opinions. And how politicians milk the fear of difference to harvest votes.
Is there an addiction to punishment and sentencing, a penal populism, despite the rate of crime dropping? Recent election campaigns seem to indicate that we are addicted to punishment. Getting tough on crime and the highlighting of criminality is fear mongering and a successful vote catcher. But the crimes exploited for vote harvesting are focussed on the crimes resulting from other social issues such as mental health, alcohol and drug abuse, poverty. Rarely do we see headlines insisting that the wealthy tax avoider should be punished, in fact the ATO recently buried the agreement it made with a tax avoider as his legal team negotiated very favourable terms for admitting to the crime of tax avoidance, allowing a much reduced payment than had been demanded. The amount ‘saved’ was a lot more than the cost of a couple of stolen Lamborghini super cars.
The protection of civil servants and politicians who were named and shamed for creating the criminal Robodebt scheme have remained unpunished. But the most marginalised of our societies are punished, possibly for being who they are, not necessarily for what they have done.
Can we be creative enough to redirect some of the expense of incarcerating people, alcoholics, drug addicts, poor people, Aboriginals, and the list goes on, people we don’t much care for need to be helped, to be given real life opportunities. To make an investment in their well-being, in their life skills, perhaps even in gaining worthwhile employment. Is that too much to ask?
Yes, there are programmes which help, but they remain seriously under-funded, there are projects such as one here in W.A. which takes troubled kids out of the classroom and with a group of dedicated teachers gives them one-on-one time to address their issues in consultation with parents and gives them directions for starting life outside of school, or if too young, to give skills which will allow better educational outcomes.
And while the Dutch don’t have a model policy we could copy, the attitude to imprisonment could be instructive, according to the article in the Guardian which first attracted my interest, it seems the Dutch are more aware that a stay in prison does more harm than good, criminals are locked away for a time, attend the university of criminality and simply resume their activities on release, many become more ruthless due to the violence of prison in which they have learned to survive. And many have developed a wider criminal network built up while imprisoned.
Or will the politicians be seduced into the tough on crime, criminalising kids, adult time for adult crime mentality which highlights fear rather than an understanding of the causes of so much crime?
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