Royal Commission or another inquisitorial farce?

The Royal Commission into Youth Detention and Child Protection’s interim report proves that, despite 26 years passing since the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody commission’s 339 recommendations – and countless other inquiries — incarceration statistics are worse than ever.

The interim report does not make any recommendations, but instead summarises the Commission’s work to date. It highlights that the Northern Territory system is failing; with a total of 94% of children and young people in detention being Aboriginal: the highest rate in Australia.

These figures are appalling but not surprising, because they were clearly foreshadowed 26 years ago. The Deaths in Custody Commission’s Recommendation 62 stressed an urgent need to address the rate at which Aboriginal juveniles were entering the criminal justice system.

Fast forward to 2016: it was outlined during the first public sitting of the Youth Detention commission that there are more than 50 reports relevant to the inquiry. The list reveals that since 2007 there has been, on average, more than one inquiry a year – but Indigenous incarceration is higher than ever.  And the federal government announced yet another inquiry, just a month after the announcement of the Youth Detention Royal Commission.

The long history of similar inquiries begs the question of why the percentage of Indigenous people in custody has risen from 14% in 1991 to 27% in 2015. Information is clearly not lacking on the issues –and these inquiries continue to produce similar recommendations.

For the Deaths in Custody commission, the 339 recommendations called for a systemic approach to change — but instead were implemented on an ad hoc basis.   More importantly, the ongoing habit of inquiries and recommendations fail to address the root cause of the issue; solving Indigenous people’s involvement in crime.

So long as inquiries substitute for action, Australia will continue to fail to meet targets – thus perpetuating the ‘stigma’ associated with Indigenous Australia.