The Cost of Doing Nothing to Alleviate the Plight of Indigenous Australians
Wednesday, 8 November 2006
Aboriginal Australia falls farther behind
Jack Waterford
IT COULD stand as the ultimate memorial to 10 years of "practical reconciliation". Fifteen years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody reported, the rate at which Aboriginal people are being incarcerated has increased by 55 per cent, and still exceeds by a factor of more than 10, the rate at which non-Aborigines are jailed.
And about a decade since the Human Rights Commission reported on stolen children, the number of Aboriginal children being taken into care has actually increased, standing at the moment at between five and eight times the rate at which non-Aboriginal Australians are taken into care.
Meanwhile, according to another report, the rate of illegal substance abuse has skyrocketed in Aboriginal communities throughout Australia. By media reports, one might think that the major problem was petrol sniffing, but the rate of that, deplorable as it is, is nothing compared to the rate of use of other illegal drugs. Cannabis is the most obviously used, but the cannabis which is the problem is not the mild intoxicant and hallucinogen of old, but a drug of greatly increased potency, as often as not hydroponically grown, and strongly associated with schizophrenia and mental illness. Heroin has long been as available in Australian country communities as in its cities, but, as it is in the cities, is falling back in popularity compared with amphetamines.
That's quite apart, of course, from the well-documented ravages of alcohol. Aboriginal people are actually rather less likely to drink than non-Aboriginal Australians of equivalent age, but those who use it are a far more disruptive force in their communities, and on their families, than seems to be the case elsewhere.
Statistics such as these, of course, commonly sit in a matrix of poor education, low levels of employment skills, high unemployment, distance from employment, poor housing, overcrowding, poor health, isolation from mainstream community services, low morale, sense of powerlessness, anger, frustration, apathy and perhaps a developed sense of aggressive victimhood. Just how these interact with each other is a matter of some debate; that each of the factors potentiates the other is, however, entirely obvious.
And not particularly Aboriginal either. One can see exactly the same cycles, and figures, from descriptions of Hogarthian London in the 17th century, at the start of the agricultural revolution, or the same London 100 years later, as the industrial revolution was occurring, or a Sydney Surry Hills perhaps 100 years ago.
Indeed, one correspondent points out to me that some of the statistics presented - so far as they cast Aborigines in a particularly poor light - may be unfair because they are not comparing like with like. Obvious disadvantage, he says, casts a very high proportion of Aboriginal Australians into the underclass - the demographic of people mostly disengaged from the economy, from the workforce, and from the wider community, deeply dependent on government benefits, very much more likely to make do by doing things - such as stealing or using drugs - regarded as illegal, and in a continual state of interaction with a host of forces of the state with coercive powers - such as police, benefits officials, welfare officers and so on.
The rate of "criminality" among non-Aboriginal members of the same class is also very high, he points out, and it may well be that once one compares incarceration rates, conviction rates, child welfare intervention rates, victimisation rates, drug abuse statistics and so on between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members that there is no great difference. So far as he is probably right, of course, he merely underlines what a high proportion of Aborigines are materially and spiritually disadvantaged, and, of course, the dreadful social and economic toll that it exacts.
(There is another thing demonstrated too. When politicians think that the way to look tough on crime is to increase imprisonment rates - as NSW has done, virtually doubling its rate over a decade - Aboriginal imprisonment rates will increase at a far faster rate than in the general population. That's one reason why one in every seven Aboriginal men and women and children in NSW has undergone at least one jail sentence, and why the rate of Aboriginal women being jailed is increasing fast.)
The statistics can be - will be - used by some as a stick with which to beat the Government, which could be - should be - doing something about it. The mere demonstration of the disparity is enough for those who think that, even without much of an idea of what the "something" should be, or who have only vague and essentially meaningless ideas about asking Aborigines what they want then doing it. That the figures are not improving, indeed getting worse, underlines the practical deterioration of affairs.
There is, however, increasingly a constituency for using the statistics to point out unpleasant facts about Aboriginal communities which some will see as blaming the victims. There is no evidence of much in the way of systematic discrimination against Aborigines by the legal system; indeed the evidence sometimes suggests the opposite, which is to say that, all things being equal, an Aboriginal person is less likely to be jailed for an offence than a non-Aboriginal person for the same offence. But all others things are rarely equal. An Aboriginal defendant is far more likely to have previous offences, indeed to have already served time. He is, on average, much more likely to have committed an offence. If the result is custodial, the offence is often serious, involving violence, theft with violence, sexual offences, theft, and not nearly so often the relatively minor offences which (like our convict ancestors) some suppose they are guilty. They commit minor offences, including street and traffic offences too, at a high rate, but this is not the primary cause of high incarceration rates.
Just as importantly, their chief victims are within their own families and communities rather than in the wider world. The people being assaulted, abused, and stolen from are overwhelmingly their own. And, as some point out, the incidence of the crime, and victimhood involved, is probably far higher than is ever recorded in the statistics, because of the pressures on victims not to dob. Proponents of some of the new theories of improving the lot of Aborigines believe fervently that the cycle of welfare dependency, hopelessness and despair must be attacked, if need be with sharp shocks which force Aborigines not only into the broader economy but into a broader citizenship.
In particular, they believe that more welfare, more dependency, and more sitting around will only perpetuate the present horrors and make the ultimate outcomes worse. Only Aborigines can liberate themselves from the prisons of our making and theirs.
Perhaps, but they are not well equipped to do so, if only because, for most, their history (extending right to the present) has hardly equipped them to fight some sort of self-reliant model of economic man. Traumatised, poorly educated, with poor physical and social capital and links into the wider community, many would think them set up for further failure - failure intended to be laid at their own door.
As the Stern report said of greenhouse action, the cost of doing nothing is actually much higher than the cost of doing something.
Promoting self-reliance and greater personal responsibility is a fine concept, which needs help. But it would be nice to think that it was accompanied by schools of a level and quantity as that enjoyed by other Australians, health services which were focused on their needs, the sort of community infrastructure and health hardware which made it possible to be healthy in body and in spirit, and some sense of government partnership in the process, rather than increasingly worse disguised exasperation, criticism and blame.
Jack Waterford is editor at large.
To read the original article from The Canberra Times, click on:
Canberra Times
Aboriginal Australia falls farther behind
Jack Waterford
IT COULD stand as the ultimate memorial to 10 years of "practical reconciliation". Fifteen years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody reported, the rate at which Aboriginal people are being incarcerated has increased by 55 per cent, and still exceeds by a factor of more than 10, the rate at which non-Aborigines are jailed.
And about a decade since the Human Rights Commission reported on stolen children, the number of Aboriginal children being taken into care has actually increased, standing at the moment at between five and eight times the rate at which non-Aboriginal Australians are taken into care.
Meanwhile, according to another report, the rate of illegal substance abuse has skyrocketed in Aboriginal communities throughout Australia. By media reports, one might think that the major problem was petrol sniffing, but the rate of that, deplorable as it is, is nothing compared to the rate of use of other illegal drugs. Cannabis is the most obviously used, but the cannabis which is the problem is not the mild intoxicant and hallucinogen of old, but a drug of greatly increased potency, as often as not hydroponically grown, and strongly associated with schizophrenia and mental illness. Heroin has long been as available in Australian country communities as in its cities, but, as it is in the cities, is falling back in popularity compared with amphetamines.
That's quite apart, of course, from the well-documented ravages of alcohol. Aboriginal people are actually rather less likely to drink than non-Aboriginal Australians of equivalent age, but those who use it are a far more disruptive force in their communities, and on their families, than seems to be the case elsewhere.
Statistics such as these, of course, commonly sit in a matrix of poor education, low levels of employment skills, high unemployment, distance from employment, poor housing, overcrowding, poor health, isolation from mainstream community services, low morale, sense of powerlessness, anger, frustration, apathy and perhaps a developed sense of aggressive victimhood. Just how these interact with each other is a matter of some debate; that each of the factors potentiates the other is, however, entirely obvious.
And not particularly Aboriginal either. One can see exactly the same cycles, and figures, from descriptions of Hogarthian London in the 17th century, at the start of the agricultural revolution, or the same London 100 years later, as the industrial revolution was occurring, or a Sydney Surry Hills perhaps 100 years ago.
Indeed, one correspondent points out to me that some of the statistics presented - so far as they cast Aborigines in a particularly poor light - may be unfair because they are not comparing like with like. Obvious disadvantage, he says, casts a very high proportion of Aboriginal Australians into the underclass - the demographic of people mostly disengaged from the economy, from the workforce, and from the wider community, deeply dependent on government benefits, very much more likely to make do by doing things - such as stealing or using drugs - regarded as illegal, and in a continual state of interaction with a host of forces of the state with coercive powers - such as police, benefits officials, welfare officers and so on.
The rate of "criminality" among non-Aboriginal members of the same class is also very high, he points out, and it may well be that once one compares incarceration rates, conviction rates, child welfare intervention rates, victimisation rates, drug abuse statistics and so on between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members that there is no great difference. So far as he is probably right, of course, he merely underlines what a high proportion of Aborigines are materially and spiritually disadvantaged, and, of course, the dreadful social and economic toll that it exacts.
(There is another thing demonstrated too. When politicians think that the way to look tough on crime is to increase imprisonment rates - as NSW has done, virtually doubling its rate over a decade - Aboriginal imprisonment rates will increase at a far faster rate than in the general population. That's one reason why one in every seven Aboriginal men and women and children in NSW has undergone at least one jail sentence, and why the rate of Aboriginal women being jailed is increasing fast.)
The statistics can be - will be - used by some as a stick with which to beat the Government, which could be - should be - doing something about it. The mere demonstration of the disparity is enough for those who think that, even without much of an idea of what the "something" should be, or who have only vague and essentially meaningless ideas about asking Aborigines what they want then doing it. That the figures are not improving, indeed getting worse, underlines the practical deterioration of affairs.
There is, however, increasingly a constituency for using the statistics to point out unpleasant facts about Aboriginal communities which some will see as blaming the victims. There is no evidence of much in the way of systematic discrimination against Aborigines by the legal system; indeed the evidence sometimes suggests the opposite, which is to say that, all things being equal, an Aboriginal person is less likely to be jailed for an offence than a non-Aboriginal person for the same offence. But all others things are rarely equal. An Aboriginal defendant is far more likely to have previous offences, indeed to have already served time. He is, on average, much more likely to have committed an offence. If the result is custodial, the offence is often serious, involving violence, theft with violence, sexual offences, theft, and not nearly so often the relatively minor offences which (like our convict ancestors) some suppose they are guilty. They commit minor offences, including street and traffic offences too, at a high rate, but this is not the primary cause of high incarceration rates.
Just as importantly, their chief victims are within their own families and communities rather than in the wider world. The people being assaulted, abused, and stolen from are overwhelmingly their own. And, as some point out, the incidence of the crime, and victimhood involved, is probably far higher than is ever recorded in the statistics, because of the pressures on victims not to dob. Proponents of some of the new theories of improving the lot of Aborigines believe fervently that the cycle of welfare dependency, hopelessness and despair must be attacked, if need be with sharp shocks which force Aborigines not only into the broader economy but into a broader citizenship.
In particular, they believe that more welfare, more dependency, and more sitting around will only perpetuate the present horrors and make the ultimate outcomes worse. Only Aborigines can liberate themselves from the prisons of our making and theirs.
Perhaps, but they are not well equipped to do so, if only because, for most, their history (extending right to the present) has hardly equipped them to fight some sort of self-reliant model of economic man. Traumatised, poorly educated, with poor physical and social capital and links into the wider community, many would think them set up for further failure - failure intended to be laid at their own door.
As the Stern report said of greenhouse action, the cost of doing nothing is actually much higher than the cost of doing something.
Promoting self-reliance and greater personal responsibility is a fine concept, which needs help. But it would be nice to think that it was accompanied by schools of a level and quantity as that enjoyed by other Australians, health services which were focused on their needs, the sort of community infrastructure and health hardware which made it possible to be healthy in body and in spirit, and some sense of government partnership in the process, rather than increasingly worse disguised exasperation, criticism and blame.
Jack Waterford is editor at large.
To read the original article from The Canberra Times, click on:
Canberra Times
posted by Pax Christi @ Monday, November 13, 2006
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