ALRC report must not be allowed to gather dust

The biggest challenge for the Turnbull government in yesterday’s 528-page Australian Law Reform Commission report on the “national shame” of soaring indigenous prison rates will be to not ignore it.

Twenty-seven years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report was delivered there will be fears that Pathways to Justice: An Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples might suffer the same fate as its predecessor.

That is, to gather dust on a bookshelf. None of its 339 recommendations has ever been implemented, despite its clear aim being to reduce jail numbers.

And, given Malcolm Turnbull’s summary dismissal of the call in last year’s Uluru Statement from the Heart for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander “voice” to parliament, concerns would be justified. Indifference to indigenous agency is the norm. This is yet another reminder that things must change.

The billions of dollars we spend locking up indigenous people only leads to their further incarceration. Instead, the money could be better spent on diverting people from jail in the first place, by investing in programs to tackle addiction, improve parenting, stop family violence and innovative measures to prevent offending in areas such as driving infringements.

The call for a national review of the out-of-home care system, while acknowledging that this is beyond its remit, is forward thinking: the link between child removals and later incarceration is undeniable.

And the brief mention of the charge-bargaining system, which encourages defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges than the more severe ones they are facing, is important.

International research shows the system increases jail numbers and does not reduce crime, when other options could be used.

There is much to be done. But first, the government must adopt the recommendations.