“The Indigenous kids I work with are powerless and voiceless. They are currently legally represented by the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, or the NT Legal Aid Commission, as it was with all the abused children who appeared in Four Corners’ Australia’s Shame program. For just under ten years, NAAJA has chosen to pursue a policy of not opposing, resisting or even publicly criticising the inhumane carceral policies of the
previous NT Country Liberal Party government or the current NT Labor government.
The German anti-Nazi and martyr, pastor Paul Bonhoeffer said that “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act”. NAAJA’s policy of not publicly criticising and thereby collaborating has been a catastrophic failure and disgrace. The purpose and philosophy of the Close Don Dale NOW! movement is action. This will include direct action and civil disobedience. They say change happens when ordinary people do extraordinary things. It seems it has to be this way.”
John Lawrence, The NT Independent, June 29, 2022.
We look at the harm caused by (juvenile) detention; trauma and neurolaw; offenders’ intergenerational trauma; adverse childhood experiences in offenders; the fact that NGOs and government organisations do not sufficiently reach the offenders; the siloing of NGOs and other organisations; victim trauma; vicarious and other trauma in lawyers, police officers and prison workers; disability in offenders; the waxing and waning of political approaches to the problem; sustainable justice; and crime as a public health issue. Alice Springs has always
been a divided town. The latest great division was caused by the Zach Rolfe murder trial, where an all-white jury decided that the killer of a disabled young black man should walk free. Rolfe’s lawyers successfully omitted damning evidence of racism and a violent past, that came to light in the coronial inquest that followed.
A Facebook page titled I support Zach Rolfe reports news and opinions that are pro-Rolfe; the page Justice for Walker does the same in favour of the victim. Division in Alice Springs is along the usual lines of political left and political right, and along racial lines. Our shared stories lie in the arts and sports, where collaboration is successfully achieved, and in the shared trauma that is described in this and upcoming blog posts.
Offender trauma and neurolaw
In the previous chapters, we have seen that factors beyond our conscious control (genetic, social, environmental) shape our behaviour.
Trauma changes the brain, and the law is slowly catching up with this fact. However, the
Australian Neurolaw database contains only one case where trauma in a young Aboriginal offender is considered.
The case R v Hawkins in 2015 concerned the sentencing of an offender for burglary, going equipped for theft, attempting to take a motor vehicle dishonestly and without the consent of its owner, theft, and possession of stolen property. The offender said at first that he did not remember the offence – but later pleaded guilty. The judge made the following findings, based on the pre-sentence report and a report from the Court Alcohol and Drug Assessment Service: the offender was Aboriginal and 21 years old at the time of the offence. He had been in a foster home. He started drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis at a very young age, and using other drugs during his teenage years. He had a significant criminal history; he had been found guilty of 68 offences and was found to be at medium-high risk of reoffending.
In the sentencing consideration, the judge noted that “He is still a relatively young man, and neuroscience shows that the male brain is not fully mature and developed until the mid-twenties”. By referring to two other judgements, the court found that even after the age of 18, the youth of the offender should still be taken into consideration.
The judge continued: “This is, of course, more so when the youthful offender is a first offender, but even later, particularly with the slow development of maturity, especially in young men, rehabilitation is usually more important than general deterrence.”
While the judge admitted that the offender’s long criminal behaviour indicated a limited opportunity for rehabilitation, he pointed out that the rate at which the brain matures should also be considered. The court, therefore, after considering the offender’s disadvantaged childhood that led him into drugs and crime, ordered a total sentence of two years and eight months, with a non-parole period of one year and ten months.
In this case, Neurolaw was being practised.
More often than not, offenders suffer from the same symptoms as victims do. Offenders are often victims themselves, and their offending behaviour stems from trauma. When we look at the trauma that offenders may carry, we must first look at cultural trauma, a form of trauma from which most other forms of trauma spring.
Image: Cousel Magazine
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