WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following article contains images of deceased persons.
Premier Allan’s proposed changes to the state’s bail laws are a dangerous, knee-jerk response that will repeat the mistakes of the past. Poised to be pushed through the Victorian Parliament this week, the Premier’s so-called ‘Tough Bail Laws’ propose a series of unjust changes that will cause prison populations to skyrocket and, ultimately, undermine community safety.
This regressive reform program represents weak-willed politics and a capitulation to loud pressure from commercial media outlets like the Murdoch-owned Herald Sun and FM radio’s Fifi, Fev and Nick. Much like the Premier’s decision to renege on the commitment to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14, these changes appear to be made at the behest of tabloid media.
It begs the question: why are media personalities and shock jocks writing our laws?
The Premier’s proposed changes are contrary to countless recommendations, reports and international human rights law standards. They disregard the expertise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, legal and human rights organisations and the recommendations of the Yoorrook Justice Commission.
Some of Premier Allan’s proposed changes signal a return to the state’s previous bail laws, which were reformed following the coronial inquest into the preventable death in custody of proud Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman, Veronica Nelson.
The Coroner described the prior bail laws as a ‘complete, unmitigated disaster’ for their grossly disproportionate impact on First Nations people. Veronica’s family have since led the call for fairer bail laws, named Poccum’s Law in her memory.
Other changes proposed by the Premier – like a draconian new bail test for both children and adults in certain cases – seek to replicate laws in NSW that have seen their prison populations soar. And the move to scrap prison-as-last-resort for children appears to be influenced by the turbo-charged ‘tough on crime’ politics that have dominated the recent elections in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
While hyperbolic headlines might lead you to think otherwise, the most recent national data shows that youth crime rates have actually decreased over the last decade, and that Victoria has one of the lowest rates in the country. The reality is that a relatively small number of children are in contact with the criminal legal system and, overwhelmingly, they are children who have been failed by the government.
Due to a toxic combination of a number of factors including structural racism, discriminatory policing and the ongoing impacts of colonisation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Victoria are nine times more likely to be imprisoned than their non-Indigenous counterparts, with a high proportion ‘crossover children’ who are let down by both the child protection and youth justice systems.
They are all children who need to be supported to learn from their mistakes, not locked away in cages.
The trajectory of Victorian politics is repeating a pattern that we are seeing across the country – of political leaders dismissing decades of evidence and yielding to corporate media calls to lock up more children. It is deeply irresponsible for media outlets to stoke fear and a toxic debate fixated on incarceration over care. This dynamic, whereby selective and hostile media reporting generates heightened fear of crime and translates into political pressure for ‘tougher’ responses, is called ‘penal populism’.
In effect, the perceived electoral advantage of a policy is prioritised over its actual effect on community safety. This not only calls into question the impartiality of certain sections of the media, it also rings alarm bells about the power that particular media personalities have over law-making.
What we do not hear on the FM airwaves or read in the tabloid press is that ‘tough on crime’ politics do not work to create safer communities in the long run. An extensive body of research shows that harsh punishment fails to prevent acts of violence, and that imprisonment routinely harms rather than heals. Studies show the younger a child is upon first contact with the criminal legal system, the higher the chance they will be incarcerated in future. Roughly 1 in 5 people detained in adult prisons were previously locked away in youth prisons, and 3 in 5 have been detained in adult prison before.
While the community is looking for strong leadership, real action to address harm must involve grappling with what is causing people to be criminalised in the first place.
Unjust bail laws do not do this.
They will create unnecessary churn through an already backlogged legal system, as more people cycle through prison for unpredictable periods of time. They will further erode the presumption of innocence, with more people detained in pre-trial detention before having been found guilty of alleged offending. And they will risk more people dying in custody on remand.
Premier Allan should resist retrograde responses that will pipeline more people into prisons. Victoria needs brave political leadership that is prepared to pursue evidence-based solutions, not cheap political point-scoring.
Imagine if – instead of spending $1.54 billion a year on prison – the Victorian government built up the supports needed to help people avoid contact with the criminal legal system to begin with?
