Deaths in custody: the legacy of John Pat and the need for self-determined justice

 

My name is Will and I write from the perspective of a non-Indigenous male from Wiradjuri Country. This perspective is informed by my current Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree, where I major in Philosophy and minor in Indigenous studies. With a keen interest in policy writing, I am excited to apply a critical lens to this nation’s settler-colony and my role within it.

 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that the following post contains stories of Aboriginal people now passed. It also deals with stories of violence and police brutality.

As a non-Indigenous settler, I live and write on a Country rightfully owned by the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples. I acknowledge and celebrate the First Australians on whose lands you read this piece, and whose cultures are among the oldest continuing cultures in human history. I pay my respects to elders, past and present, whose sovereignty has never been ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

 

“A concrete floor, a cell door and John Pat” — Nyoongar playwright, Jack Davis.

 

38 years ago today, Ashley James went for what seemed like a fairly innocuous drink at the Victoria Hotel in Ieramugadu (Roebourne). Stepping out the front of the pub, the barmaid overheard the snarls of the five off-duty police officers who’d been drinking all day. “We’ll get you,” one officer barked at James, a Yindjibarndi man. In the Pilbara town, this kind of police intimidation was nothing new for young Indigenous men like James. But after enduring assault and taunts of “get fucked,” James finally fought back.

 

16-year-old John Pat was one of the few Indigenous onlookers to rush to support James against the five officers. One witness saw an officer hit John Pat, who struck his head on the road. The Yindjibarndi kid was, according to witnesses, then brutally kicked in the head and thrown into the back of a police wagon “like a dead kangaroo.” As a final marker of this heinous act of police brutality, Pat’s lifeless body was found later that night. “A concrete floor, a cell door and John Pat.”

 

The five officers were eventually charged with manslaughter. Although one officer, tellingly, could not explain the bloodstains on his boots, all of the state officials were acquitted by an all-white jury. And all—bar two officers, one retired—were later promoted. It is a trajectory that seems depressingly familiar.

 

From Indigenous peoples who have already suffered enough injustice from a violent police system, the backlash was swift. This finally pressured the government to act with the watershed Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1987-1991). In the final report, the death rate was diagnosed as a symptom of being incarcerated at a disproportionately high rate. This link between imprisonment and death provided the key force behind most of the report’s 339 recommendations, which centred around notions of self-determination and a reshaped criminal justice system.

If you were a Indigenous kid during John Pat’s time, marked police vans would swarm the Ieramugadu neighbourhood from 8am to midnight, sometimes as often as every hour. The police profiling of Indigenous communities has not gone away, either. Gunai/Kurnai woman and ex-Queensland police officer, Veronica Gorrie, recounts police vans preying on Aboriginal families, searching high and low to find a crime—no matter how serious. While other groups do not face the same scrutiny, the equation seems simple: if you are black, you are more likely to be detained. It’s how Indigenous youth are 17 times more likely to be incarcerated; and it’s how Indigenous adults are 12.5 times more likely to be incarcerated too. If you want to understand the over-representation of Indigenous people in the justice system, you must start by looking at police behaviour.

 

Police behaviour like this is given the gold tick of approval by desperate politicians that pander to their law-and-order campaigns, like those recently seen in Townsville. With little regard for the complex nature of criminal behaviour, such punitive campaigns justify prejudice and maintain a steady stream of Indigenous people into prison. Keenan Mundine—Gadigal man and co-founder of the Indigenous community-led Deadly Connections—bluntly argues in Incarceration Nation that police have been given “more resources and more funding, to do what they do best, which is terrorising Aboriginal communities.”

 

Although politicians like to conjure up fearful imagery of lawless, gang-filled streets infested with crime, rates of crime have actually been going down for most categories of offences in the past 25 years or so. Imprisonment is, therefore, largely driven by policies that have toughened bail laws, lowered the age of criminal responsibility, jailed minor offences, and increased the time a prisoner spends behind bars with little rehabilitation.

 

There must be a focus on strategies that limit Indigenous peoples contact and entry into the criminal justice system. Put simply, this means moving resources away from prisons into Indigenous communities to support early intervention and diversion from the system. Local communities are best suited to respond to local needs, addressing the unique causes of incarceration in that region. The good news is that there are some initiatives leading the way to reduce prison rates, and deaths in custody, as a result. 

 

One key initiative is the Maranguka Justice Reinvestment Project in Bourke. Facing one of the highest rates of juvenile convictions in the state, the Bourke Aboriginal Community Working Party and the non-profit Just Reinvest NSW established a community agenda to reduce young Indigenous people’s contact with the criminal justice system. This project—for community, by community—has very real benefits for the Ngemba people of Bourke. Most notable benefits include serious reductions in charges, crime, and overall days spent in custody for both adults and youth. Keeping Indigenous kids in communities, rather than in custody, also saved the township over $3 million in 2017. With support from State and Federal governments, more Indigenous-controlled, in-community initiatives are a powerful antidote to Australia’s incarceration nation.

 

Dubbo is another town leading the way on justice reinvestment, working hard to change the state’s relationship with Indigenous youth. The Walwaay Program—‘Walwaay’ meaning ‘young man’ in Wiradjuri—was established by Dubbo Police’s Aboriginal Youth Team as a community-supported program to build trust with Indigenous kids to break the circuit of reoffending. Part of the program involves taking kids out to the local PCYC on a Friday night to play sports, eat a good meal, and enjoy a night with friends. It beautifully epitomises the idea of ‘kids in community, not in custody.’ According to Dubbo Detective Superintendent McKenna, even hard-nosed police officers, once skeptical of the program, come away with “a new attitude because they’ve seen these kids in a completely different light.” Not only did Friday nights become the second-quietest night for crime, but Dubbo has seen a 65% reduction in charges against Indigenous youth.

In looking at current diversionary initiatives for Indigenous youth, one cannot overlook Our Songlines’ Connected Mob Program. Much like the Walwaay Program, Connected Mob works to connect Indigenous youth through “sports, cooking, culture, family, community and schooling, whatever shape this may take.” This support network is as unique as it is extensive, connecting local government, Koori Engagement support officers, Victoria Police, Headspace, Aboriginal businesses, gathering places, and mentors. Connected Mob identifies areas for skill development and training, with a clear focus on the individual and their unique goals and desires. 

Since John Pat’s death and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody decades ago, there has been an ongoing flood of unimplemented reports on Indigenous deaths in custody—from inquiries, expert studies and more royal commissions. Despite their variety, their recommendations are the same: policy must be determined by Indigenous communities and address the underlying drivers of crime. And while Bourke and Dubbo have provided the blueprint for the future, it’s up to our leaders to make this change on a national level.