Grassroots action needed against mandatory sentencing
By Edward Johnstone
BRISBANE — Two hundred people attending a meeting against mandatory sentencing at City Hall here on March 17 were told, "If we let politicians introduce these laws, the next thing will be chain gangs and then the electric chair".
The warning, from Prisoners' Legal Service solicitor Karen Fletcher, was one of many condemnations voiced against the NT and WA laws, and against Queensland's own politician-driven imprisonment frenzy.
The meeting heard speakers from the Queensland Law Society, the Greens, Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation, Resistance and the Prisoners' Legal Service, all of whom labelled mandatory sentencing racist and inhumane and called for grassroots action to force their abolition.
"Politicians benefit from these laws", meeting organiser and Aboriginal activist Sam Watson said. "The only way we will wipe them from the statute books is if we do it ourselves."
He endorsed a Resistance proposal for a rally on April 7, three days before a bill to override the laws is likely to be debated in the House of Representatives.
Fletcher told the meeting that the Queensland National Party's shadow attorney-general, Lawrence Springborg, has also promised to introduce mandatory "pattern" sentencing and can be expected to campaign on it at the next state election.
"Every election they strive to be the toughest of the tough on crime, and they care only for their careers, not for the people they are oppressing — the poorest of the poor in our society", Fletcher said.
Ron Finney, formerly a lawyer with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service in Brisbane, spoke of the danger that Australia faces if the laws are not rolled back. "In the US there are now more than 2 million people in prison. It has the highest rate of imprisonment of any country in the world and one of the reasons for that is mandatory sentencing", he said.