BY LACHLAN HARRIS
After declaring "the circle sentencing pilot in Nowra has been fantastically successful", New South Wales attorney-general Bob Debus has announced plans to roll out circle sentencing across the state.
Next month, Dubbo will be the second town to benefit from the introduction of this Aboriginal-controlled sentencing process, with Walgett, and Brewarrina following by the end of the year.
Circle sentencing replaces the ordinary judge-controlled court sentencing procedure with an Aboriginal community-controlled process, in which four senior Aboriginal community representatives determine the sentence.
According to Magistrate Doug Dick, who facilitates the circle sentencing in Nowra, when offenders are judged by elders in their community "the message that the law aims to deliver, using punishment, is much more effectively delivered".
Kate Davis, one of the community representatives who sits in the sentencing circle explained, "I talk to them like I talk to my own children". Robert Bolt, the first Aboriginal offender to experience circle sentencing agrees, he told the Koori Mail, "what those elders said to me were words that needed to be said to me a long time ago ... I was on a downward spiral and those elders picked me up and brought me back to a level where I knew I had to be."
The senior Aboriginal community members, who sit in the circle with the offender and their family, the victim, the magistrate, the police and an Aboriginal Legal Service Lawyer, pass down sentences that encompass normal punitive measures such as jail time and community service. However, the panel also has the discretion to impose drug and alcohol courses and random testing, anger management courses and other intervention strategies.
As well as passing sentence, the elders also discuss the circumstances of the crime and of the offender. This gives the chance for real communication to take place between the offender, the victim, the elders and other members of the community. This is part of what Winsome Mathews, the chairperson of the NSW Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee, calls a "holistic approach to justice delivery".
Mark Douglass, an Aboriginal Legal Services solicitor commented that this approach means the circle becomes "a room full of mirrors", which forces the offender to recognise all of the consequences of their crime.
Craig Veness, the police prosecutor attached to the circle sentencing pilot program, admitted that police were initially sceptical about the effectiveness of the process however now "the police have completely changed their perspective of it and their understanding of its value".
Veness also commented, "this is not a soft option, in fact history will now tell you its probably a tougher option for the offenders". Robert Bolt would agree, he confided that "I think I got punished twice, by being in the circle in the first place and then getting the sentence itself".
Despite this toughness, Robert and several participants attested to the profoundly positive impact circle sentencing has had on their life.
[Lachlan Harris is the legal correspondent for the Koori Mail newspaper.]