© Dot Goulding
The stolen generation revisited in WA: First we took the children from their
parents, now we take the parents from their children
Socio-economic position of Indigenous people in Western Australia
Colonisation and its consequences; dispossession from land and culture and forcible removal of
generations of Indigenous children from their families and communities have had a disastrous
impact on Indigenous people’s general wellbeing and life chances. It is well documented that
Indigenous people suffer entrenched disadvantage in all aspects of life. They are among the most
socially and economically disadvantaged members of West Australian society. Indigenous West
Australians endure deep rooted poverty, ongoing systemic racism, high rates of unemployment, as
well as bearing the burden of high levels of mental health problems, alcoholism and increasing
substance abuse. Some other social indicators of Indigenous disadvantage include: a life
expectancy twenty years less than that of non Indigenous people; infant mortality rates which are
twice those of other Australian infants, and Indigenous women are twice as likely to be sole
parents. Apart from their collective experience of general social disadvantage, Indigenous people
in Western Australia are also disadvantaged by their disproportionately high rate of imprisonment.
Western Australia’s particular shame: the gross over-representation of Indigenous people in
West Australian prisons
There are approximately 67,000 Indigenous West Australians. This constitutes around 3.2 per cent
of the total West Australian population. Almost half of these are children under the age of 18 years
and, Indigenous children aged 0-17 years comprise 6.1 per cent of all Western Australian children
in this age group. Let me highlight relative youthfulness of the West Australian Indigenous
population: ‘the median age for the Indigenous population in 2001 was around 20 years compared
with 36 years for non-Indigenous population’. There are approximately 30,000 Indigenous children
under the age of 18 years living in Western Australia. It is estimated that around 6,000 of these
children currently have one or both parents in prison (Quilty).
Contextualising the position of Indigenous people in the West Australian criminal justice system
West Australian imprisonment rates, at 237 per 100,000, are higher than the national average
which is around 150 per 100,000, with the Indigenous rate of imprisonment in WA standing
(conservatively) at 3268 per 100,000. According to Department of Corrective Services Western
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Australia weekly offender statistics (24th May 2007), there are currently 1,621 Aboriginal
Australians in custody out of a total West Australian prison population of 3,794. Indigenous West
Australians now constitute 42.7 per cent of the total adult West Australian prison population.
Disturbingly, Indigenous juveniles make up almost 73 per cent of juveniles in custody in Western
Australia. In particular, the rate of imprisonment of Indigenous women is increasing alarmingly.
Within the West Australian context, Aboriginal women, who make up approximately 3.2 per cent
of the general female population, constitute almost 60 per cent of the female West Australian
prison population. In other words, Indigenous women in Western Australia are over 40 times more
likely to be in prison than their non Indigenous counterparts. There can be no argument Indigenous people are grossly over-represented within the West Australian prison system.
For decades we forcibly removed Indigenous children from their parents – now we’re taking
Indigenous parents from their children and putting them in prison. During interviews for a recent
research project into women’s particular experience of imprisonment in WA, Irene, a 31 year old
Indigenous mother of ten, spoke of the impact of imprisonment upon her life: She saw her life as
being totally controlled by Government departments. The Ministry of Housing had terminated her
tenancy, evicted her and taken her home, the Department of Community Development had taken
her children, the Police had travelled with her in the ambulance when she was about to give birth
to her last child and had taken her baby ‘the minute after she was born’, and the Department of
Corrective Services had imprisoned her and taken her freedom.
A dire consequence of the over representation of Indigenous people within the prison system is
that disproportionate numbers of Indigenous children are negatively affected by having one or both
parents in prison. However, the failure to collect demographic information about children from
imprisoned parents is widespread. As a result, ‘most statistics provided regarding the numbers of
children impacted are extrapolations based on samples generalised across prison populations’.
Working on extrapolation from NSW data, it is estimated that Australia wide ‘approximately
38,000 children experience parental incarceration each year… these figures represent almost 5% of
all Australian children and 20% of Indigenous Australian children’ (Quilty).
It has long been acknowledged that disrupted parenting in infancy and early childhood can have
profound negative effects on children, leading to insecurity and vulnerability in adolescence and
psychological and emotional disturbances in adulthood (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
1997:184).
Most research on pathways to crime and, conversely, pathways out of crime suggests that
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early childhood deficits such as the absence of a parent increase the likelihood of subsequent
delinquency (Maruna 2001; Matza 1964). This was clearly evidenced in the findings of the National
Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.
The Bringing Them Home report estimates that, from the late 1800s until the practice was
officially terminated in 1969, as many as 100,000 Indigenous children are believed to have been
forcibly separated from their families’ (Zubrick et al). Since enforced separation has been identified
as a major negative factor, it is reasonable to assume that where the forcible removal of children
from parents is damaging then the forcible removal of parents from children is equally damaging
to normal emotional and social development and general wellbeing in children. With the
disproportionately high rates of Indigenous incarceration in Western Australia in mind, it is
incumbent on relevant government legislators and policy makers to (1) address the
disproportionately high rates of Indigenous arrest and, (2) the subsequent high rates of Indigenous
imprisonment and, (3) where imprisonment becomes the elected sanction, to attempt to minimise
the trauma of enforced parent/child separation due to imprisonment. In order to achieve this goal it
is crucial that prison authorities seek to establish culturally appropriate family policies as a core
business within the West Australian prison system as well as nation-wide.
Departments of Corrective Services Australia wide do not routinely collect data on the parenting
status of prisoners. Although, in Western Australia the Department of Corrective Services has
estimated that 47 per cent of female prisoners were primary care givers for dependent children
immediately prior to their imprisonment and that only one third of these received visits from their
children. However, the status of male prisoners as fathers is invisible within most prison systems.
The prisoners’ fatherhood is virtually never a civil status that is at issue… there are no official
records in Australia detailing the numbers of children of male prisoners (Aungles). As a result,
policy formulation and local prison practices in the area of parental imprisonment are developed
without this vital information.
An unintended effect of the high levels of Indigenous engagement with the criminal justice system
has been the fostering of equally high levels of intergenerational offending. Research in this area
demonstrates that imprisoning a parent increases the likelihood of their children becoming
imprisoned by up to six times (Woodward). This intergenerational offending factor only serves to
compound the problem of continually escalating Indigenous imprisonment rates.
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Over the past decades several West Australian governments from both the left and right of the
political divide have recognised and named the problem of gross over-representation of Indigenous
people in the prison population. Several ill thought out legislative and policy measures have been
put in place to try and fix this problem. None has succeeded. Indeed, the problem continues to
escalate out of control, with Indigenous imprisonment rates currently at their highest levels ever. If
Indigenous incarceration continues to increase at the current rate, Aboriginal people will make up
more than half of the West Australian prison population within 5 years. There is an urgent need
for a new approach to reduce Indigenous imprisonment. In reality, most research which informs
policy and legislative reform in this area has traditionally been based on ‘top down’ positivist
methodologies developed within a male dominant white middle class framework. These essentially
mainstream criminological approaches do not work with Indigenous populations, as is clearly
evidenced by the current situation. The innovation of Indigenous friendly ‘bottom up’ approaches
to research with disadvantaged social groups has proved successful in the Canadian context with
First Nation Canadians. For example, the remote Hollow Water community had a history of high
levels of violence, suicide, addictions and sexual abuse. Mainstream Canadian criminal justice
solutions of punishing and imprisoning perpetrators did nothing to solve the community’s deep
seated problems which continued over many generations. Eventually, the residents of Hollow
Water began to seek community or ‘bottom up’ solutions to their problems. Using traditional
Aboriginal approaches, the people of Hollow Water profoundly transformed their community
through the healing processes of restorative justice. For another less ambitious and more local
example of a ‘bottom up’ approach to effect positive social change where the imprisoned women
participants of a recent research project informed the research process by assisting in the
formulation of the research questions and providing background information to the researchers.
During the project the researchers, with participants’ information about women being shackled
during childbirth and hospital appointments, were able to effect positive policy changes and stop
the local and most shameful practice of shackling women to hospital beds during labour, childbirth
and other medical and hospital visits (Harding 2002; interviews Bandyup prison 2002). In this way, and
because of their involvement in the research process, the women were able to have some small
influence over their own lives as prisoners.
The nature of imprisonment
By its nature, imprisonment inflicts a profound rupture on existing family and community ties,
with serious social consequences for those concerned. ‘Imprisonment of a parent most often causes
massive upheaval and dislocation for a child’ (Woodward). Within an Indigenous context this
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upheaval and dislocation is magnified because of disproportionately high incarceration rates
compounded by past colonial policies and practices which included the forcible removal of
Indigenous children from their families and communities. The systematic and officially sanctioned
removal of Indigenous children over several generations has had a catastrophic impact on
Indigenous physical and mental health, general social and cultural wellbeing, family structures and
family functioning, resulting in entrenched disadvantage in all aspects of life. Certainly, most
research in this area indicates that the disproportionate involvement of Indigenous people in the
Australian criminal justice system relates to lifestyle differences linked to socio-economic
disadvantage relative to the rest of the population. The practice of imprisoning such
disproportionately high numbers of Indigenous West Australians, ‘amounts to a de facto policy of
criminalising the socially disadvantaged (Omaji & Beresford).
In purely economic terms the cost of escalating imprisonment rates are unsustainable. Currently
the cost of keeping each adult prisoner in custody in Western Australia is over $94,000 per year;
compared to $8,500 per year to monitor offenders in the community (Department of Corrective Services
WA, Annual Report 2005-2006:107).
At the time of writing there are over 3,800 prisoners in Western
Australian prisons at a total cost of more than $350million; the economic cost of Indigenous
prisoners per year stands at approximately $152million. These figures are more or less mirrored in
each state and territory nationwide. In addition to the economic cost, the social cost of parental
imprisonment negatively impacts on younger generations through the ongoing breakdown of
family structures, particularly within an Indigenous context. ‘When fathers and young men are
taken from their communities and put in jail, the composition of the community changes and the
social dynamics are changed. This affects all relationships and eventually impacts on community
wellbeing as a whole’ (Woodward). All of which, impact on ever increasing intergenerational
offending rates, particularly within Indigenous communities.
Australia’s reputation on Indigenous human rights has been tarnished internationally. The United
Nations has put on record its concerns regarding the treatment of Indigenous Australians, claiming
firstly that ‘in no area are Indigenous people on an equal footing with their non-indigenous
counterparts’, and going on to express deep concern about the inequality in Australia’s criminal
justice system, naming the over-representation of Indigenous people in custody (United Nations
International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination: Summary record of the 1394 th
meeting: Australia. 09/02/2001).
The disproportionate representation of Indigenous West Australians
within the state’s prison system was also described as ‘an international scandal’ by the then West
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Australian Minister for Justice and Attorney General, Jim McGinty in Parliament on 22nd May
2003 (Hansard). Unfortunately, since McGinty’s speech to Parliament in 2003, the number and
proportion of Indigenous prisoners in West Australia has continued to increase with 42.7 per cent
of the total prison population currently being Indigenous, many of these men and women are being
held ‘out of country’ hundreds or even thousands of kilometres from their families and
communities. This statistic, which is mirrored at only slightly lower rates across all Australian
states and territories, will continue to tarnish Australia’s records on human rights if the nation does
not seriously engage in addressing institutionalised disadvantage among its Indigenous people.
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