Jailing is failing and so is youth detention
Time to turn to evidence based alternatives which break the cycle of incarceration
The Justice Reform Initiative is a new national organisation which seeks to shift the public conversation and public policy in Australia away from building more and more prisons and youth detention centres and instead to turn to evidence based alterneratives which break the cycle of offending and turn lives around.
Australia spend almost $6 Billion each year just in operational costs of prisions and youth detention centres. This does not address the underlying issues giving rise to contact with the criminal justice system by many people including a massively disproportionate number of First Nations people. We need to invest instead in mental health and substance dependency programs, employment, housing, literacy, family violence prevention and other drivers of contact with the criminal justice system.
About the Speaker
Robert Tickner AO is Australia’s longest serving Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and among other things was the Minister who co-ordinated the national response to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. During his time in the portfolio, he fought hard for Indigenous rights and wrote about his experiences in his book “Taking a Stand”.
Prior to his election to the national parliament Robert worked as a solicitor with the Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern. After political life Robert was CEO of Australian Red Cross for ten years and acted as the Under Secretary General of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Federation in Geneva. Robert has also published another book titled “Ten Doors Down” which outlines his journey to find his birth family as an adopted person.
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