Paul Toohey; 25/6/09; (3 Items)
On Thursday, 16-year-old Alfaus Nabegeyo attended the Gunbalanya clinic complaining of a swollen right foot. By Saturday morning, he was dead in his parents’ bed after three days of agony. His parents, Elijah and Daisy, say Alfaus was weak from the effects of petrol sniffing, a habit they believed he had kicked. Others around Gunbalanya, formerly known as Oenpelli, about 300km east of Darwin, are not so sure Alfaus had given up and suggest his rapid decline was brought on by poor resistance and his malnourished state. By late Monday night, other petrol sniffers around town were lying low. Gunbalanya, with a population of 1200 and located on the doorway to Arnhem Land, has 29 active petrol sniffers.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25686840-2702,00.html
Poverty, booze and jail
Stephen Lunn; 25/6/09
Gino Vumbaca doesn’t mince his words about the high number of Aborigines in jail. “We’ve had numerous reports, papers, pledges and inquiries about prisons and their indigenous population. Yet despite all the good intentions, the proportion of Aborigines in detention continues to increase. “At some point we need to realise what we’ve been trying is on the periphery. The system is broken and we can’t keep trying to fix it up, we have to replace it. White justice just doesn’t work for indigenous people.” Vumbaca, executive director of the Australian National Council on Drugs will today join Health Minister Nicola Roxon in Canberra to launch a new ANCD report on indigenous incarceration and health, one that calls for radical changes to the status quo.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25684843-28737,00.html
Soaring jail rates justify change of tactics: report
Joel Gibson; 25/6/09
The apalling rate of indigenous imprisonment, which has almost doubled since the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths In Custody, has led to renewed calls for radical changes in the handling of indigenous offenders.Eighteen years after the Royal Commission, the number of indigenous women in prisons has more than tripled to make up one-third of all inmates, and more than half of the 10 to 17-year-olds in juvenile detention are indigenous.Eighty-three per cent of the Northern Territory’s inmates are indigenous, and in Western Australia it is 41 per cent. NSW, with 20 per cent, has the fourth highest proportion.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/national/soaring-jail-rates-justify-change-of-tactics-report-20090624-cwvh.html
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Drugs