How do you break the grim cycle of Indigenous incarceration? Start here
The Glen, an Indigenous-focused rehab centre on the NSW central coast, is a much-loved local institution. People are proud of it and there’s a team of eager volunteers who help out. The residents’ stories are moving – as are the centre’s results.
For most of us the passage of time is marked by significant milestones like finishing school, moving towns, stints abroad, changing jobs, getting dumped, falling in love, kids, funerals, weddings... but not for Gordon Simpson.
As we sit in the sun on the NSW Central Coast talking about his past, he takes me on a tour of NSW: Silverwater to Parklea, Windsor, Bathurst, Lithgow, Junee, Cooma, Brewarrina, Wellington, Macquarie, Nowra. He’s lived all over the state and yet the view never changed: four walls, washbasin, prison bed. He tells me about the time he was in hospital at Long Bay and Neddy Smith was in the next bed, shaking with Parkinson’s. Gordon Simpson is 37 and has spent 18 of those years – half his life, and the vast majority of his adult life – behind bars.
“I first went into juvie when I’d just turned 14… that was for breaking into cars,” he says. “So it would be laptops and things like that. You’d get a thousand bucks back then and we’d get two or three a day. At first, when I started stealing, it was to buy food and clothes because we didn’t have much and Mum was struggling… but with that type of money, growing up in Woolloomooloo [in inner Sydney], it’s hard not to find your way to drugs.”
Simpson, a Wiradjuri man, grew up in public housing a staircase away from Kings Cross. “There was a lot of alcohol in my family and in Woolloomooloo there’s a lot of homeless people and each night there’d be 10, 20 at home drinking and playing poker and all that stuff they used to do back in the ’90s. With that comes domestic violence – my dad never hit my mum, it was the other way around. My mum used to stab him, and stuff like that… he passed away five or six years ago from alcoholism… he was in the cold in some park somewhere and it just got the better of him.”
As a kid, he never liked the taste of grog and steered clear of it, seeing the damage it had done to his parents. And then, around the age of 15, someone gave him a snow cone – cannabis mixed with heroin. “I just loved using heroin from the moment I tried it,” he says. “I liked the way it made me feel and I became addicted really, really quickly… I couldn’t go to school ’cause I was suffering withdrawals and things got really tough, really quickly.”
The rest is a sad and all too common Aboriginal story played out in suburbs and settlements from Woolloomooloo to Warburton, to Wadeye and Wilcannia. Gordon Simpson’s life became one of long stints in jail, short bursts of freedom, and then another laggin’.
And yet, Simpson is now upbeat about his life and his prospects. He’s looking fit and healthy and has been exercising daily. He’s off all drugs, and is tested regularly. He’s been eating well. He’s getting his driver’s licence. He’s set up his first-ever email address. He’s got a bank account. He’s kicking goals. For the past nine weeks he’s been living in a remarkable Indigenous rehabilitation facility called The Glen Centre, on the NSW Central Coast, and is nine weeks through a 12-week course.
He came straight to the program from jail. Nine weeks is a record, he tells me, as his longest stint on the outside since he was 18. “The last time I was clean was for one month, and that was 2012,” he says. “And I don’t think I’ve clocked that long since I was a kid. I’ve either been on the bupe [buprenorphine] or the methadone… I’ve never been completely clean like I am today. It feels really cool actually.
“On the weekend I had an overnight leave and I was with my brother, and he’s been clean for two years, and two of my mates, and they’re clean too. We always used to do heroin together and crime together and we done a lot of jail together and all three of them are clean! We were driving around the city and it was like, ‘Remember we done this. Remember we done that,’ and, like, on every corner there was a story about our addiction.”
Australia has become the incarceration nation. Despite a drastic decline in crime rates over the past 20 years, particularly property crime, imprisonment rates are the highest they’ve been in more than a century. There are currently more than 40,000 people in jails around the country, an increase of 20 per cent in the past decade. The cost is enormous, more than $120,000 a year per prisoner. The social cost is devastating.
The jailing of Indigenous people has increased by 25 per cent in ten years. Queensland leads the way, locking up more than twice as many Indigenous people compared to a decade ago. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders make up 3.8 per cent of the population and 32 per cent of the prison population. A 2021 Amnesty International report claims that Indigenous Australians “are the most incarcerated people in the world”.
Robert Tickner has spent much of his life attempting to reverse this shameful trend. Prior to entering politics, Tickner was the principal solicitor at the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service. He stood for office and became the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs in the Hawke and Keating governments, where he initiated the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
He’s still advocating for change, heading up the Justice Reform Initiative, a group of eminent Australians – judges, lawyers, artists, former senior police, former corrections officers, religious leaders, academics, Indigenous elders – who believe “jailing is failing and that there is an urgent need to reduce the number of people in Australian prisons… that the over-use of prisons is fundamentally harmful to those in prison, their family and friends, and the broader community.”
When we meet in a cafe in Balmain the old social justice warrior is fired up. He’s angry, and ashamed, that little has changed since he delivered the Royal Commission report to Parliament more than 30 years ago. In fact, it’s gotten worse. He’s frustrated that politicians, journalists and the public don’t grasp the issues.
“There’s a lot of quite erroneous things written about Aboriginal incarceration,” he says. The Royal Commission, he says, did not find that Aboriginal prisoners were dying at a higher rate than non-Indigenous prisoners. The number of Aboriginal deaths in custody was extraordinarily high because the number of Aboriginals in jail was disproportionately very high. Tickner says the misrepresentation of this fact “conveys in the mind of the public that [deaths in custody] is a problem caused by police and prison officers.”
What the Royal Commission did find was that there were underlying issues giving rise to the rate of Aboriginal incarceration. “They identified that there was an Aboriginal factor, the dispossession, shattered families, the discrimination, the catastrophic employment, the appalling health, mental illness, alcoholism… and it laid out a blueprint for reform.”
To reduce black deaths in custody requires that there are fewer Indigenous people in jail, and this, Tickner says, requires a whole of government approach, strongly led by the federal government. It requires the states, territories and their ministers to be held accountable. It requires addressing housing, health, mental health and employment. It requires a commitment to these underlying issues over generations. Importantly, it requires the funding oforganisations that deliver these services.
“The brutal and very public murders of African Americans that gave rise to the Black Lives Matters campaign was picked up in Australia and the conversation here shifted to the suggestion that what is happening in custody is the major problem,” he says. “It’s not. It is caused before they get into custody. I am a passionate prison reformer, but unless you address those underlying issues nothing will ever change… If you don’t have investment in mental health, substance abuse, literacy, education, employment, economic development, nothing will change in a thousand years.”
The Justice Reform Initiative has found a “barren landscape of misery” when it comes to funding non-government and government organisations working in Indigenous communities to address issues Tickner says are driving “Australia’s ridiculously embarrassing growth in Indigenous incarceration”.
He says the causes of Indigenous incarceration should be on the agenda of every state and federal minister. He gets frustrated when he goes to talk with governments about this and is fobbed off to the attorneys general when the fundamental issues are with housing or mental health or drug and alcohol abuse.
He believes the federal government needs to do more to take the lead in this space. “The Government needs to play a crucial role,” he says. “We want to remind the Prime Minister that when he says ‘No one should be left behind’ that there are people going around like a revolving door in the prison system. They are being left behind. It’s not working and it’s costing a massive amount of money.”
The Glen Centre on the NSW Central Coast is a prime example of the sort of services we should have in Indigenous communities all over Australia, says Tickner. He’s been to visit several times and has been moved by the stories, and impressed by the results. “If we could roll out programs like The Glen all around the country it would be transformational, utterly transformational,” he says. “It’s an Aboriginal-run program that has the full support of the drug and alcohol sector and the community… it’s an incredible program. It works.”
The Glen is one of 28 Indigenous rehab centres around Australia. But it is unable to meet the huge demand. In the past year 956 people applied for a placement there, and 152 were accepted into a place where black lives matter.
There’s a chill in the air and a couple of dozen rough-headed blokes with bad teeth are sitting around a campfire, the Yarning Circle, going through the rules as they do each day. These are men who’ve spent time in the toughest prisons, opening up about their feelings and their failures and what gratitude means to them.
“Joe, you can lead off,” says Aaron More, the program manager, a bloke with tattoos up the side of his neck. He was a client a few years ago.
“No threatening or violent behaviour,” says Joe. “Billy?” “If we go shopping we are not allowed to go to any gambling facilities.” “Good. Lyle, are you ready for another one?” “No smokin’ durries before ya chores are done.”
“OK,” says counsellor Aaron. “Today I just want to talk a bit about gratitude. A lot of times when fellas leave The Glen [prematurely], or have issues with the rules and the responsibilities, it is often the case that gratitude is not a big part of their life. So when I say the word gratitude, what does that mean to you? Brett?” “Bein’ thankful, I suppose, for bein’ here and gettin’ an opportunity, yeah.”
“Who’s had that feeling in the first few days where you’ve got the shit-goggles on, it’s f..kin’ hard, you can’t be bothered. You’re comin’ down [off booze or drugs]. You’re doin’ new things that you haven’t done before, speakin’ to counsellors, bein’ angry with yourself. Was anyone really angry with ’emselves when they came in?” Hands go up. “Bloody oath I was angry,” says Jack. “Angry and disappointed at how me f..kin’ life had turned out.”
I ask one of the men later if he’d ever have spoken openly like that in prison. “You never talk about stuff like that in jail,” he says. “You don’t ever want to let people know you are vulnerable, ‘cause they’re all hard c..ts and if they think you’re vulnerable they’ll take advantage of ya… in jail, you’re always ready for war.”
These are tough, hard men and yet, over time here, a gentleness is allowed to blossom.
The setting is tranquil, a bush block on a few hectares beside Tuggerah Lake. There’s a gym, pool tables, touch-footy ovals, a volleyball court and arts spaces. The tucker, which the clients help prepare as part of their daily duties, is, as one client tells me: “Like a f..kin’ real flash restaurant.” There are no fences. It’s all about personal responsibility and respect; people are booted out for bullying, disobeying the rules and failing drug or alcohol tests.
Joe Coyte, the facility’s Executive Director, says The Glen works because it was “designed by Aboriginal people who understood what was needed because they’d been there themselves”. It is designed as a place for people to recover, before they get back to life.
The Glen was established 30 years ago by Cyril Hennessy, a Malyangapa man who grew up in Bourke, and worked as a prison and parole officer. Hennessy became frustrated with the system, knowing that many of the people who breached their parole and went back to jail had addiction problems and had suffered immense traumas. He knew that none of those issues were solved by another stint in jail.
“He wanted to concentrate on keeping them out of jail, instead of putting them behind bars for an illness,” says his sister Carol Hennessy, chair of the all-Indigenous board. “He knew they needed somewhere to go to get help… a lot of them have come from very harsh lives from when they were little kids. Cyril wanted to create a place where they could recover.”
Cyril had two sons, Glen and Anthony, who both had problems with addiction. Anthony died in a bus crash. Glen, who’d gone to university and was a linguist, died at an early age of alcoholism. Hennessy turned his grief into action. He named the centre after his son. “He got frustrated with the system,” says Joe Coyte. “He had a dream of doing things differently.”
Cyril Hennessy teamed up with Joe’s father, Vincent, who had been the principal of Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School in Tamworth. Vince had retired to the coast at an early age, devastated after the death of his wife from breast cancer. When he learned of Cyril’s vision, he decided to join him.
“Cyril and Vince were incredible together,” says Joe. “They often fought like an unhappily married couple but they were both really passionate. They had complementary skills. Cyril knew what needed to happen to make the rehab side work. He understood all the Indigenous cultural elements. He understood the drug and alcohol side of things. My old man had the networks, he had relationships and he had good admin skills.”
It wasn’t the most popular project with the local community when first mooted 30 years ago. But this Indigenous-focused rehab centre has become a much-loved local institution. People are proud of it and there’s a team of eager volunteers who help out. Each year it hosts the local touch-footy carnival. The Central Coast Mariners have embraced The Glen – before games, the centre’s Indigenous dance crew performs to rev up the crowd. It holds a regular variety show, The Glen’s Got Talent, and local families come to watch.
Musician Kasey Chambers drops in regularly to give guitar and songwriting lessons, or to help out in the kitchen. She became involved eight years ago when her then teenage son, a talented AFL player, attended a talk given by clients at The Glen about the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol. “I was just really taken by the way they handled the whole thing,” Chambers says. “And it really sunk into those boys.”
In May 2021, after many years of pushing by the board, all of them Aboriginal women, The Glen for Women, a 20-bed facility on a nearby bush block, took in its first clients. Chambers performed two songs, at the official opening, held a couple of months ago. “Every time I come here I am just so inspired by the staff and the way they handle every situation… but the clients, they’re the ones who are in the ring and they are actually doin’ it. They are making these changes in their lives, and they’re the ones doing the hard work… it’s inspirational.”
Local businesses and industries, too, have become involved, offering employment. “Most people get their first job through their connections,” says Joe Coyte. “For many of our clients, they just don’t have those connections.” At the end of the three-month rehabilitation clients can opt to stay on in a transition program where they get a job and save some money.
“When they leave prison, there is nothing in place,” says Coyte. “They are really set up to fail. We are trying to set them up to succeed.” They work on life skills, job skills and how to save money – all while dealing with their underlying traumas and addictions. And they connect with their Aboriginal culture.
Dave Webb, 51, is explaining his previous life of drug addiction, living around Redfern, “hating every whitefella I ever seen”, and jail. Webb (pictured right) comes from a big family. “Me eldest brother was John, he died through drugs. The next one is Peter, he’s doing 23 years for murder. Then there’s James, he done around 15 years for robberies. Then there’s me. Then Robert, he’s been out of jail for five years now, and he’s a carer for me mum. And the next one is Anthony, he’s in jail for armed robbery.”
“My sisters, they’ve got their heads screwed on, went to uni and all that,” he says. “They’re all teachers and they raised all our kids, me brothers’ kids and my kids, while we were inside.”
He’s not dismissing the crimes he and his brothers have committed, and acknowledges they all deserved to be jailed. But he says all of them became criminals because of their addictions. Webb managed to quit heroin a few years ago, but the booze still had him. “I was drinking every day – early in the mornings, as soon as I opened me eyes, I always had a couple of beers in the fridge. Then I’d sell quarters of pot for cartons of beer.”
He’d been out of jail for a number of years, but could see that his addiction was leading him back. “I could see myself selling heavier drugs, cocaine and that, to make a quick bob… and so I decided to come up here.” He was attracted to The Glen because it was Aboriginal-run. “Lots of them other rehabs are about the Bible and I don’t believe in that shit, that’s what stopped me goin’ to rehab before,” he says. Like most others, he heard about it from former clients who’d recommended it.
When he arrived at The Glen he was amazed to see there were no bars on the windows, no cameras. “And all the workers, they just welcomed you. It just spun me right out. They were so happy to see me. And when they tell their stories, it makes you feel even more comfortable. I thought, ’Jeez, this is the place for me’.”
“There are a lot of sports,” he says. “We play touch-footy and volleyball and they take us to tennis… these were all the things I loved when I was a young fella, before I done drugs. I am laughing, I never laughed so much in me life. The workers are straight down the line with ya … they’ll put you in that very uncomfort zone where you need to hear it. It makes a difference, cause they’ve been there.”
Webb says he got annoyed when he was supposed to have a two-night leave and it was knocked back to one night. “I got real cranky and said I wanted to see me family.” One of the staff called him up to the office, sat him down, and asked how often he’d talked to his boys when he was drinking. Hardly ever, he had to admit. “He said to me, ‘Since you been up here you’re talking to them every day, you go and see them on the weekend and you babysit the grandkids – and that wouldn’t have happened without The Glen.’ I needed to hear that and when he threw that back in me face I thought, ‘Yeah, you’re right, you got me’.”
He says that before coming to The Glen, his family were ready to disown him. “They’re all so happy I come here… It’s the first time I’ve really listened to other people and valued what they had to say. I’m learning how to speak better. Me communication with me boys has improved. I’m learning how to talk to them and to hear their opinions.”
The cost of keeping someone like Dave Webb in rehab for a year is around $18,000. The cost of having him in jail is around $120,000, plus the court and police costs to get him there. The Glen is conducting a long-term research project to evaluate the cost benefits of its program, which is largely government funded. When people are in The Glen they are much less likely to end up in hospital, much less likely to come in contact with police and much less likely to end up back in jail. If they complete the course, they’re likely to get a job and become contributors, rather than a drain on the public purse.
Dave Webb was going well for a few months after graduating. But then, he hit the bottle again. The Glen is still supporting him, trying to help him through. He’s a work in progress and the door to The Glen is always open to him.
I caught up with Gordon Simpson a couple of months after he finished up at The Glen, and more than five months since he was released from jail. “I’ve smashed all my old records,” he says. He now has a job at the Sydney Fish Markets and just got his first pay packet. “The job title is Sorter,” he says. “So the fish come in, the tuna and stuff, and we get them out of the tubs and lay them out on the table and put ice on them and make ’em presentable,” he tells me. He starts work at 3am and finishes at 11am. “That’s the hardest part of the day, the sorting. And then I sit scanning items on the way out.” He’s loving the job, the routine and the pay.
He’s moved in with his partner and is saving money for a car. He admits he had one relapse but has been able to recover from that. He’s had no encounters with the police. He reckons The Glen has given him the skills he needed to make a go of it. “The Glen focuses on counselling and mental illnesses, and stuff like that, along with little things like helping you get your licence and taking you to appointments. Just the support they give and the culture stuff is amazing, like the dancing; that really gave me a sense of purpose and belonging and I really felt I found my identity.”
And then he adds: “It taught me to be honest with myself. My life has been a struggle, it’s been tough, but The Glen has given me tools to fix it. It might take a while, but I’m on the right track.”
Simpson recently completed a first aid course and is now a safety officer at the Sydney Fish Markets.
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