AUSTRALIA needs to become a more redemptive society and put in place
corrective policies for offenders that enable it to forgive and accept
them back, the chair of South Australia’s Social Inclusion Board has
told a Law and Order forum at Fremantle’s University of Notre Dame
Australia.
Monsignor David Cappo, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Adelaide, told the 29 May forum that the criminal justice system needs to adopt a social inclusion model that “puts the citizen, not the system, at the centre of justice”.
The fact that 54 per cent of Australian prisoners have been there before proves that the prison system as a method of rehabilitation is not working, Mgr Cappo said, and that while prison should be reserved for the most serious and violent crimes, the criminal justice system needs to adopt a family-centred model to prevent criminals re-offending.
He said policies need to stabilise families and provide safety nets in case offenders fall over when they go into custody or when they’re released.
Very strict bail, parole and probation conditions work against families, he said, and “we need to give families a better chance of stability by beginning the reunification process before a family member is released”.
“It is not just about reintegrating this person back into the community, it’s about reintegrating them back into their family, where their greatest supports are,” he said.
“When old habits return, families must be able to call on supports to help get their loved one back on track.”
He proposed a model South Australia recently adopted that addresses the offenders’ vulnerability and reduces the chance of further contact with the justice system and acknowledges the fact that they are part of a network of friends, family and the community.
These networks are crucial in engaging in their relative or friend’s reintegration.
He said that while it is the responsibility of the individual not to commit crime, the community has a social responsibility to act on the warning signs, which include disengagement with education, anti-social behaviour, exposure to violence, no positive role models, under age drinking and substance abuse, informal cautions from police and child protection notifications.
Many offenders, especially youth, have “fallen through the cracks” as various systems and services have not responded to their unique circumstances, like the education system, he said.
“Tough on crime” agendas, he said, only fuel the community’s expectations of prison as the answer to criminal behaviour. The reality, he said, is that apart from temporarily protecting the community, there are “few other positive outcomes” for the community from one’s incarceration.
Prison or youth detention centres usually only suspend violence and crime temporarily. This is especially the case for youth, for whom prison has lasting damaging effects, reinforces criminality and lengthens criminal careers.
He said youth and their families have reported that their life circumstances offer “no hope”, nor alternatives to a life of crime.
As families are central to a person’s rehabilitation, he advocated a family justice court model adopted in the US, UK, South Africa, Singapore, Canada, Collingwood in Victoria and recently by South Australia in Adelaide’s southern suburbs.
In New York where it has been adopted, this has resulted in a 75 per cent increase in compliance, swifter justice as the time between arrest and arraignment has shrunk from 30 to 18 hours, community service orders have more than doubled from 29 to 69 per cent, increased public support as 57 per cent agree it’s a wise use of taxpayer funds, and, significantly, 93 per cent of offenders agree the procedure was fair, even though at times the sentence included incarceration.
The model’s response involves each jurisdiction adopting a process to scale down the prison population who would be better managed and responded to through less punitive responses, by using some of the roughly $200 it costs a day to keep a person in prison.
Cross-agency responses are then delivered, pooling intelligence and forming a more responsive, personal approach to offenders and directing them away from re-offending.
The capacity and flexibility of these diverse options that the judiciary can use address the person’s life issues that made them vulnerable in the first place.
This, Mgr Cappo said, is a family-centred” approach to justice, and reflects in some ways a subtler version of Aboriginal justice, “which we can learn much from” – the hearing is immediate, the accused accepts responsibility and stands accountable and prepared for judgement, which is understood by the whole community and leaves the offender emotionally and often physically scarred.
While these methods seem harsh by Western standards, the key is that, with Aboriginal law, the offenders’ right to re-engage in society was not inhibited by their offending. This is the forgiving and accepting element which Western society needs to adopt, he said.