August 18, 2023 | Author: Christianna Thomas | Editor: Ruonan Zhao
The British "found" and colonized Australia in 1788. They saw it not just as an object to conquer but as somewhere to settle and colonize. This is uniquely different because they didn’t just have the intention to exploit resources, but also the people. They fundamentally changed the way Australia was seen. From a place filled with life belonging to natives, to that of a "wasteland" belonging to savages. The term “wasteland” was used because the British found very few of the natives. They saw Australia as an uninhabited island ripe for use.
https://www.indiatimes.com/explainers/explained-why-australia-is-still-under-the-rule-of-british-monarchy-579799.html
However, as the British kept exploring Australia, they found themselves incorrect in their assumption that it was uninhabited. Instead, they discovered that Australia was filled with native people; anywhere from 300,000 to 1 million were estimated to have lived there in 1788.
Complicating the issue further, even though the British found Australia to be occupied, they didn’t change their view of sovereignty. Sentiments that Austria was "empty" continued to describe the island, and they claimed ownership based on "original discovery". When challenged on their discovery, many claimed they were the first to "effectively occupy" the land. Those words shaped the way the Indigenous people were understood by western society. They were no longer just another group of people who occupied Australia. They were less than—savages, underdeveloped, and in need of the “white man” to help them.
This logic was used to justify the kidnapping and exploitation of innocent children. The Australian Human Rights Organization explains, "The greatest advantage of young Aboriginal servants was that they came cheap and were never paid beyond the provision of variable quantities of food and clothing. As a result, any European on or near the frontier, quite regardless of their own circumstances, could acquire and maintain a personal servant."
Different ways people were forced to assimilate
Assimilation is defined as the process of becoming a part, or making someone become a part, of a group, country, society, etc. More broadly, it is a tool used by the settler state to erase indigeneity. If they are able to push them to the edges of society and remove their culture, people can use stolen land guilt-free. The elimination of indigenous life and land excuses their settlement since there "aren’t any more natives to claim the land."
One form of forced assimilation in Australia is the Aboriginal Acts, which were enacted in 1869. They mandated that every Indigenous child be put in a boarding school to "educate" them.
They wanted to "inculcate European values and work habits in children, who would then be employed in service to the colonial settlers" (Ramsland 1986, quoted by Mason 1993 on page 31). This led to cycles of abuse and service to colonial masters. Moreover, they were used as a mechanism to distance Indigenous children from their family and community. This systemic cultural genocide cannot be rationalized, but it was still justified for 100 years.
Even after these acts were repealed in 1969, the impacts of their actions still permeate Australia today.
https://dehanz.net.au/entries/public-private-australian-schooling/
The Bringing Them Home report explains that the children ripped from their homes via the Aboriginal Acts had an increased chance of police attention, rejected their culture, and many times didn’t get to access their native title*.
According to the report, Indigenous children were "often told they had been rejected or that family members were dead (typically neither was true). They could be punished for expressions of attachment or grief." This means they were cut off from family and cultural ties at these schools, and forced to adopt a new identity without the space to mourn the loss of their entire tribe.
Additionally, to better paint a picture of the ways native children were taught to reject their culture, The report features a child who was light-skinned, so many saw her as white, and shares her story.
"She was brought up to believe she was ‘white’ and to have a low opinion of Aborigines. But in adolescence, she was told she had ‘mud in her veins, causing severe distress. She opened her veins to examine her blood for mud."
A minimum of 1 out of 10 children and a maximum of 1 out of 3 were forced to attend these schools. Which not only furthered this forced assimilation but also unstable mental health and substance abuse due to an inability to cope, according to the report.
Current systems of policing and colonial enforcement
The use of the police and incarceration have hurt Indigenous communities in the present day. Though, to better understand how this problem has entrenched itself in Australia, it requires a deeper explanation. It isn’t just a one-off situation or a couple of bad apples; it is a systemic issue. It is based on colonial policies and beliefs as well as bias, which impacts all of Australia.
The Model
In order to "deal" with the Indigenous communities in Australia, the government adopted an Irish Model of policing. This model pits the police against ethnic groups via military-style barracks and rigid interactions with the people.
A study of policing in Western Australia called Every Mother’s Son is Guilty explains that Indigenous people were heavily impacted by the windswept idea that they were inferior to whites and a priori* criminals. This means they are criminals in their being; criminality is intrinsically tied to them. This understanding was enforced by the officers’ belief that they were part of a "civilizing mission". Which translates to forced assimilation, like boarding schools or incarceration, in order to "reform" Indigenous people.
The Negative Consequences
The concepts of "reforming" and "civilizing" Indigenous populations are reflected in a disproportionate amount of policing in indigenous areas, as well as police killing Indigenous people. Expanding on that, the need to "reform" Indigenous people is acted out via jailing them because they are seen as "unruly" and "criminal".
The records of police killings are extensive, like the 60 Warlpiri, Anmatyere, and Kaytetye people killed in the Coniston Massacre in 1928.
Furthermore, the way police disproportionately targeted at Indigenous communities is outrageous:
According to The Guardian:
"In NSW, police took 82.55% of all Indigenous people found with a non-indictable quantity of cannabis to court. The rate was 52.29% for the non-Indigenous population.
"In Western Australia, Aboriginal drivers received 3.2 times more fines after being pulled over than non-Aboriginal drivers."
Separately:
The Productivity Commission found Indigenous kids are detained in detention centers at 22 times the rate of non-Indigenous children.
Indigenous children are less likely to be cited by the police than non-Indigenous children.
Over Policing Has Consequences.
This continued issue of over-policing just makes the rift between Indigenous people and the police worse and worse. Instead of potentially bridging this rift via community-created events like get-togethers or volunteer projects, many stations have pushed this crisis away as "normal" or just "consequences of bad families''. In the same vein, Mick Fuller, the New South Wales police commissioner, rebuffed anti-police sentiment as "something that happened in another country." It is not just the police who are ignoring the problem; politicians are too. The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, said it was "fair" to bring up issues of "people’s treatment in custody or things like that", but then incorrectly stated "there was no slavery in Australia". These excuses, even though some were wrong, further push Indigenous resistance to this violence away from the forefront of politics. It is a move to try and ignore culpability for systemic issues.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/16/almost-half-the-massacres-of-aboriginal-people-were-by-police-research-finds
Predictive policing
This is not an imagined issue; it is very specifically targeting Indigenous communities. For example, in New South Wales, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission’s investigation of the police force’s Suspect Targeting Management Plan (STMP) found that "[Their] analysis suggests a high proportion of young people (72%) who the NSW Police Force had identified as ‘possibly Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander were selected for STMP targeting."
This use of predictive policing is used in the US to target black communities, and we see the same impacts of its use in Australia. Predictive policing ingrains racism in policing tactics because it uses ideas like "Indigenous people will commit more crimes" to shape where it tells officers to target. That just fuels over policing in Indigenous communities and creates a cycle of incarceration.
Children in jail
Piac principal solicitor Camilla Pandolfini said, "Research consistently shows that the earlier a young person is involved with the criminal justice system, the more likely they are to become further involved in that system." "Bringing young people before the court for minor offenses risks entrenching them in the criminal justice system."
To contextualize this, this means that the disproportionate number of Indigenous children put in jail is a major contributing factor to the high incarceration rates in the Indigenous community. As these kids spend time in jail with criminals, they grow the sense that they are expected to act like them. Societal expectations perpetuates the issue of Indigenous people in jail, and that problem starts when they are as young as 10 years old and impacts them all through adulthood.
Colonial ties
These policies, from predictive policing to The Aboriginal Acts to the general disproportionate number of Indigenous people in jail, traces back to settler colonial ties. The massacres of Indigenous people by police were used by settlers who wanted control, no matter how violent, according to the Harvard International Review. These massacres and the jailing of Indigenous people enabled the British to settle in the 18th century. If they could lock away or exterminate the natives, then they could keep settling without guilt or resistance. That same need to forget about native genocide and violence is seen in the continued jailing of Indigenous people and remnants of the model used during early colonization.
Even up until the 1970s, police removed massive numbers of Indigenous children from their homes to be adopted by white families, or forced into boarding schools. Therefore, the use of police to dispossess indigenous people of their land and family is not simply a relic of the past. It used to be done directly, and now it is done indirectly via over policing.
More broadly, the criminalization of Indigenous people as innately criminal also contributes to the policing problem in Australia. Framing them as "the problem" or policing more in their communities means more cops to lock up little kids for stealing chocolate bars, which comes from a story featured in The Guardian.
Fixing it
Looking to the future, there is a need for reform, and that can come in various ways.
One way is a method exemplified by Indigenous activist Sol Bellear, writing for The Guardian, "We will never capitulate. We will never assimilate. You can come to that realization now or in 100 years. But the determination of Aboriginal people to control Aboriginal lives will never end." This mode of resistance to assimilation and oppression is an alternative for many Indigenous people. Seeing cultures that have been silenced and stigmatized now represented and practiced via painting, music, dance, and theater is resistance in and of itself. It is resistance to the state and fosters joy in oppressed communities.
On the policy side, many have proposed reduced spending or justice reinvestment. Which aims to reduce spending on criminal justice using data-driven approaches, prioritizes public safety, and lowers corrections.
To simply put, the police are not always needed. Mental health crises and more fragile situations require careful mental health professionals. This not only reduces incarceration rates and provides more adequate assistance, but also improves police-Indigenous relations as police are less associated with traumatic events.
What threads through all versions of justice reinvestment is, as Chris Cunneen, Professor of Criminology, puts it, is "a strategy to reduce the number of people in prisons through early intervention, prevention, diversionary, and other community development programs." He goes on to explain that a redirection of funding from policing to these programs is recommended.
In the Maranguka Justice Reinvestment Project in Bourke, NSW, we can see how the initiative has been implemented. Justice "circuit breakers" were put together with the goal of limiting the contact Indigenous peoples had with the police, which reduced the incarceration rate. Some rules were changing how breaches of bail and outstanding warrants were dealt with, as were the requirements for a learner driver program.
The success of such actions were apparent, with significant decreases in reports of domestic violence, juvenile offenses, the number of days in custody, etc. They even saw a 31% increase in 12th grade retention.
Both of these strategies have been seen to benefit Indigenous communities by prioritizing their autonomy and determination. As we look to the future, placing Indigenous needs at the center of Australia's policy and mind is key. Not only because of violence, but also for the Indigenous children who get locked up every day for stealing candy bars. The survivors of boarding schools who fight daily to get past the trauma, and the communities that are criminalized, when all they want to do is dance, sing, and celebrate their culture, which has been ignored for so long. Those are the people Australia needs to prioritize because it’s Australia's continued jailing, stigmatization, and removal that put those communities in these situations in the first place.
*Native title is the recognition that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have rights and interests to land and waters according to their traditional law and customs as set out in Australian Law.
*A priori definition, from a general law to a particular instance; valid independently of observation.
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