Justice and mental health advocates have condemned the incoming Country Liberal Party government's 'law and order' plans for the Northern Territory, including lowering the age of criminal responsibility to ten, lifting the ban on spit hoods, and increasing police powers to arrest people.
Nyamal woman and founder of the Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health, Dr Tracy Westerman, wrote on social media that the new government is "the worst thing to happen to Aboriginal people" in the Territory.
"This 'tough on crime' agenda is just code for let's lock more Black people up. That's because we have a prison love affair and a prevention allergy when it comes to our most vulnerable, highest risk Australians, and it's lazy politics," she said.
"We love doing what's already been done again and again; prisons in the NT are already overflowing with Aboriginal people, but let's continue to ignore the evidence of what prison does - just ensures future criminality."
Dr Westerman said incarceration "limits work and education opportunities" and noted that the more prison time people serve, "the more attachment to family and kin is destroyed to the point that people literally have nothing to lose - they don't fear prison after a few stretches".
"Prison costs significantly more than prevention does, and we wonder why nothing improves. This won't 'fix' Alice Springs," she said.
A child at 10:
Loses 4 baby teeth a year
Knows the complete date
Can name the months of the year in order
Can read and understand a paragraph of complex sentences
Has developed skills in addition, subtraction
Has some skills in multiplying and division,
And, in Australia,… https://t.co/FnhPgH3qA7
— Dr Tracy Westerman AM (@TracyWesterman) August 27, 2024
The National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls also condemned the CLP's law and order plans.
Advocate Debbie Kilroy said lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 "represents a significant retrograde step in justice policy".
"It is a direct attack on Aboriginal children and will result in a net widening of the carceral system," she said.
"The incoming government know that this policy will result in more Aboriginal children being swept up into the carceral cage, exacerbating the already alarming rates of mass incarceration of Aboriginal children in the NT."
Ms Kilroy said the expansion of police powers "usually equals an increase in police resourcing, and also signals a deepening of punitive approaches to social issues".
"The incoming government are using prisons and policing as a default response to solve complex social issues created by decades of underfunding, under resourcing and disenfranchising of communities," she said.
"There is always money to lock people up, but never money to house them… We have to demand that our governments do more, be better, and actually do the work of building up our communities, not simply disappearing people into cages."
Fellow National Network organiser Tabitha Lean said the government's plans to reintroduce truancy officers was "a policy rooted in the racist and violent NT Intervention" which "demonstrates how carceral logics operate in our school system".
"Our schools are being transformed into sites of punishment and harm, alienating the students they should be nurturing and the parents they should be including," she said.
The National Network also condemned the proposed reintroduction of using spit hoods in both children's and adult prisons.
"This cruel, inhumane and too often lethal practice has zero place in our prisons," Ms Kilroy said.
