Electronic Mail Petition

Please ignore this email if you are not interested in the NT mandatory sentencing issue. REPEAL THE MANDATORY SENTENCING BILL 1999

We, the undersigned Australians, request that the Northern Territory Government repeal the Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders Bill 1999 immediately.

We believe the recent death of a fifteen year old Aboriginal boy who was being detained in Darwin under the Territory's mandatory sentencing laws was avoidable.

We believe the Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders Bill 1999 is discriminatory, disrespectful, morally abhorrent, racist and unjust. The Mandatory Sentencing Bill takes the responsibility for law and order away from the local custodians of the law in each Aboriginal community in the Territory. Despite the Royal Commission's Inquiry into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and 339 recommendations later, Aboriginal people are still 14 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Aboriginal Australians. We understand that in the Northern Territory, people of Aboriginal descent constitute 72.8 per cent of the prison population. This compares with 33.1% in Western Australia and 21.6% in Queensland. Does the Northern Territory Government genuinely believe that mandatory sentencing laws are making a real difference?

There is a better way.

We believe the boy's local community and family could have undertaken a more appropriate action under customary law and the young boy would probably still be alive today.

We urge you to consider enabling and supporting Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory to implement their own laws as responsible, respectful and valid, ways of dealing with offensive law breaking behaviour.

Yours sincerely,

Name: Email Address:

1. Doug McGhee,

2. Brouss Ironbark Chambers 3.

1. Hon Peter Adamson MLA

2. Mr. John Leonard

3. Mr. Stephen John

4. The Hon. Timothy Denney

5. The Hon. Lorraine Margaret

6. Denis Gabriel

7. Hon. Stephen

8. Mr Johan Wessel

9. Mr Stephen Paul

10. Mr Paul Raymond

12. Dr. Richard Soon Huat

13. Hon. Christopher Dennis

14. Hon. Daryl William

16. Hon. Terence Robert Lee Cath Research Development Officer Office for Research (Law)

University of Melbourne VICTORIA 3010AUSTRALIAPhone +61 3 8344 6183 Fax: +61 3 9347 9129 Law Web site: http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au

Dear folk, Further to the email petition I sent you last night, Mark Zirnsak has contributed the following:

"A word of warning about the e-mail petition that you forwarded. We imagine that the petitioners are against the WA and NT mandatory sentencing laws of 1996 and 1997, but this petition states that it opposes the 1999 legislation. The 1999 Bill in fact aims to safeguard the rights of children by abolishing mandatory sentencing laws for those under 18. I am therefore sending you information which came out in our most recent Victorian Uniting Church justice unit mailing, which gives the text of the 1999 Bill, as well as some of the background.

"I think that I am right in assuming that the person who originally devised the petition may not be totally familiar with the "guts" of the Bill, and instead has assumed that because it is entitled "Human Rights (Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders) Bill 1999" that it is a further piece of regressive legislation.

"I hope that you will pass this material on to whomever you have passed the e-mail petition to, and also to whomever you received it from.

"By the way, at the risk of sounding pedantic, just a note about e-mail petitions. They are fraught with problems in themselves - if you sign on at number 12 and then send it on to 20 people who all sign on at number 13, who then send it on, etc, your "signature" (and theirs) will be replicated many times before the petition is finally forwarded to the government. This replication then basically voids the validity of the petition, as the recipient will often just delete the whole, knowing that it is predominantly a multiple carbon copy petition.

"A letter to the PM and the others mentioned in the following document may well prove to be the best course of action. Hope this is helpful!! Kind regards, Mark Zirnsak Social Justice Development Officer Synod of Victoria Uniting Church in Australia"

Bang 'Em Up - Mandatory Sentencing of Children in Australia

"We are opposed to the mandatory imprisonment of children on moral and democratic grounds and urge all Senators to support the [Human Rights (Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders)] Bill. The sentencing regime in the Northern Territory has led to the imprisonment of juveniles for often very trivial crimes. It has also resulted in the imprisonment of large numbers of homeless children, Aboriginal children and mentally ill and intellectually disabled children." - Rev Gale Hall, Northern Territory Council of Churches and Secretary of the Northern Synod, Uniting Church in Australia.

Both the Northern Territory and Western Australia have introduced legislation in 1997 and 1996, respectively, that requires mandatory sentencing of children to prison for minor offences. In the Northern Territory, if a child is found guilty of more than one property offence he or she receives mandatory imprisonment. One of the most serious aspects of these provisions is that they apply regardless of how minor the second property offence may be. The Australian Bureau of Statistics noted in late 1997 that the NT prisoner population had increased by 42% since mandatory detention was introduced.

In Western Australia, legislation provides that when convicted for a third time, children must be sentenced to a minimum of 12 months' imprisonment or detention. The 'three strikes and you're in' legislation has attracted adverse comment from the President of the Western Australian Children's Court.

These laws have been introduced despite the finding of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Australian Law Reform Commission that there has been no significant increase in juvenile crime rates in the last 15 years.

It is estimated that more than 120 children have been imprisoned in WA and the NT under mandatory sentencing laws since 1996. The laws unfairly target Aboriginal children, who are disproportionately more likely to be convicted of property crimes. Examples of those imprisoned include: * two 17 year old girls with no previous criminal convictions being sentenced to 14 days in prison for theft of clothes from other girls who were staying in the same room; * a 15 year old girl detained for 28 days for being a passenger in a stolen vehicle; and * a 15 year old Aboriginal boy placed in mandatory detention for breaking a window after he heard about the suicide of a close friend. While in detention he attempted suicide. He had been referred to the Department of Family, Youth and Children's Services when he was 12 due to lack of parental support. Since age 14 he has largely looked after himself.

In the words of the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, "Mandatory sentencing does not take into account the child's age, the facts of the current offence, the individual circumstances of the person, consideration of an appropriate period of time or the application of judicial discretion. Mandatory detention restricts the court's capacity to ensure that the punishment is proportional to the seriousness of the offence and in relation to the rehabilitative options."

Legislative Action to Uphold Human Rights. In response to State legislation for mandatory sentencing, in late August 1999 the "Human Rights (Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders) Bill 1999" was introduced into the Federal Parliament. The Bill, if passed, would prevent the mandatory sentencing of children (anyone below 18)

anywhere in Australia. The Bill simply states: "A law of the Commonwealth, or of a State or of a Territory must not require a court to sentence a person to imprisonment or detention for an offence committed as a child."

The Bill has the support of the Northern Territory Council of Churches, the Law Council of Australia, the National Children's and Youth Law Centre, Defence of Children International, Human Rights Commissioner Chris Sidoti, the Greens, the Australian Democrats and the ALP.

The Bill sets out to implement Australia's obligations to children under Articles 37(b) and 40(4) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Australia is a State Party. Article 37(b) states: "No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time." while Article 40(4) states:

"A variety of dispositions, such as care, guidance and supervision orders; counselling; probation; foster care; education and vocational training programs and other alternatives to institutional care shall be available to ensure that children are dealt with in a manner appropriate to their well-being and proportionate both to their circumstances and the offence."

Recommendation 92 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Report of 1991 called on States and Territories to ensure that imprisonment was a sanction of "last resort".

What you can do * The Hon. John Howard MP, Prime Minister; * The Hon. Daryl Williams, AM, QC, Attorney General; and * Senator The Hon. Richard Alston, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate. The address for all three is: Parliament House Canberra, ACT, 2600

Points to make in your letter: * Express your deep concern that mandatory sentencing laws in WA and the NT have resulted in children being imprisoned for minor and trivial offences; * State your belief that mandatory sentencing laws are a violation of Australia's international human rights obligations, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child; * Point out that under the international human rights agreements that Australia is party to, the Federal Government has the responsibility to ensure that State and Territory laws comply with the obligations of those agreements; and * Urge the Government to support the "Human Rights (Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders) Bill 1999".

Thanks again, - ironbark