Handing down an interim report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1988, Commissioner Muirhead stated that "humanity and our country's reputation demand a vigorous approach and new initiatives". Seven years after the commission's opening, and four years since it delivered its final 339 recommendations for sweeping changes to the judicial, police and penal systems, Aboriginal Australians continue to die in police cells and prisons.
A key recommendation was that imprisonment be used only as a last resort. Yet Kooris continue to make up over 15% of those in prison and 25% of those arrested. Green Left Weekly's CHRIS MARTIN asked Ray Jackson, treasurer, public officer and management committee coordinator of Sydney's Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, if anything had changed.
How well do you think the royal commission recommendations have been implemented?
The recommendations haven't been implemented. Since they were handed down four years ago, there have been 20 more deaths. The last was young Michael Sainsbury out at Parklea just before Christmas. It's obvious that the deaths, the incarceration rates and the police pick-up rates are increasing.
Who do you hold principally to blame?
The government, the police and the corrective services hierarchies. They should control their workers. If anything, things are getting worse because the officers are actively trying to resist the changes that the recommendations could bring about.
What role do you see the committee playing in having the recommendations implemented?
We've been going since 1987, and this is our first lot of funding. We've also been blessed by some government departments such as the office of Aboriginal Affairs, the Aboriginal Justice Advisory Commission, ATSIC and other groups. They are supporting us in our move to become part of the notification protocol.
As soon as there's a death in custody, the ALS [Aboriginal Legal Service] is informed. We are informed to look after the family counselling, the funeral services and the welfare side. That is how it should be. As an extension of that, we're pushing for the proper utilisation of those recommendations.
We've just spent a day at Long Bay [jail] and asked the bureaucracy there why there are no education facilities whatsoever, despite it being part of the recommendations. We're setting up a meeting with the boss of the education system within the Department of Corrective Services to find out what they are doing and why they aren't utilising the recommendations.
What do you see for the future? Do you expect more funding?
Our submission to ATSIC for 1995-96 is for an increase of seven workers. That will give us two case workers for the country jails, two for the metropolitan jails and one for the juvenile justice centres. This will mean that there'll be a spotlight on the prison service virtually 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
How important do you think this scrutiny is?
Very important, because without it the officers do what they want. We got a call-out up to Grafton. One of the brothers said, if you don't get up here within a week there's going to be body bags going out. It'll either be us or them — them being the screws. We dispatched a couple of people; it's horrendous up there.
At the moment we've only got one case worker trying to cover all the metropolitan jails. He can't handle it, which is why we need the other case workers. One of them has to be a grief counsellor, because when there is a death in custody we want to be able to have our own grief counsellors — a Koori grief counsellor — to go out and stay with that family, for weeks if need be, on pay. There's not one Koori grief counsellor in NSW.
Why do you think so little has been achieved by the authorities?
One of the issues raised by the House of Representatives Standing Committee was, of the $400 million that was handed down [by the federal government to state and territory governments to deal with deaths in custody], something in excess of $100 million cannot be accounted for.
Where has that money gone? One hundred million can just go walkabout, and there's not even so much as an eyebrow raised.
The money's been used to "tackle" the problem but it depends on what level you look at it. Some people might say that having all the top cops in Australia go to an Alice Springs motel outside Uluru for three weeks so they can come up with a 20-page document full of motherhood statements all paid for out of deaths in custody money is at least something. To us it's nothing.
The Watch Committee has an all-Aboriginal Management Committee. Why is that important to the group?
We do, and will, jealously guard our autonomy. Even though we might be photographed by the Department of Corrective Services and we wear a Department of Corrective Service badge, we are the Watch Committee first and foremost. This is explained to every group that we are dealing with.
The all-Aboriginal management committee is the key. We make the decisions and run the committee, although we do have lot of support from non-Aboriginals. Even if we go arse over head on some things (which we will), it is our decision, no-one else's. It is very important that Aboriginal people have this empowerment to run their own lives and their own organisations in their own way.
What are your other plans?
ATSIC has backed the Watch Committee and told us they want us to organise the NSW families [of those who have died in custody] conference. This will involve 35 families meeting for three days on the queen's birthday weekend at the Tharawal Land Council at Thirroul.
The families will be deciding what they want. Obviously a lot will want compensation of some kind. Equally, they are going to want justice given that their son or daughter was [a victim of] foul play within the prison or the police system.
We're also trying to reopen the Eddie Murray case. We have lodged a submission with ATSIC for funding to investigate the legal arguments to have that case reopened.
Finally, what does invasion day mean to you?
Invasion day is a commemoration of a lot of wasted lives, a total bloody waste of our people. Every time there's a death in custody, or a kid is not looked after health-wise or education-wise, that waste continues. All invasion day does is commemorate that waste.
[The office of the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee is open Monday to Friday, 9.00am until late at Room 34, 1st Floor, Trades Hall, 4 Goulburn St, Sydney.]