Media Statement: Trumpian new bail laws pose an unacceptable risk to community safety
First Nations, community, legal and welfare groups are calling a snap action at Parliament on Tuesday 18 March to oppose the introduction of the Allan Government’s “Tough Bail Bill”.
“The Government is selling this Bill to Victorians on a lie,” says Karen Fletcher, the Executive Officer of Flat Out, a support service for people released from prison and detention. “The evidence is overwhelming and clear that locking up traumatised and distressed people with high support needs increases community risk, not safety.”
“A government that was serious about community safety would heed the call of families and communities begging for housing, mental health and AOD services, especially for their kids. But the voices of affected communities are being drowned out by massive police and government media units, billionaire-owned tabloid news outlets and rich influencers clamoring for higher imprisonment. But their claims of ‘youth crime waves’ are based on selective and distorted data, and they know it.”
If passed, the Bill would roll back the hard-won reforms to bail laws in 2023 that followed the shocking death of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson on remand at the Dame Phyllis Frost women’s prison in 2020. More than 545 Aboriginal people have died in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody delivered its final report in 1991 – a number that only threatens to grow if bail is further withheld.
Targeted communities and the underfunded legal, health and welfare services struggling to support them cannot compete with the law and order propaganda machine. Flat Out has core funding for just 2.6 workers who struggle daily to support people at extreme risk when the government has underinvested in housing, mental health, AOD and parenting services.
Community Snap Action to Oppose New Bail Laws
When: Tuesday 18 March, 4:30pm
Where: Steps of Parliament House, Spring Street, Victoria
Who: Flat Out, Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Fitzroy Legal Service, Human Rights Legal Centre, and many more
Quotes:
Nina, family violence victim/survivor advocate and survivor of remand imprisonment:
“In 2018, 65 percent of women were locked up for less than a month and released without a sentence. I am one of those women. I am angered and confused, sitting in fear of what will come next. We know prisons don’t prevent violence. With families still mourning and our communities still recovering as we make our best attempt to rebuild our lives from the last knee-jerking tough bail laws, I ask, how is it we are here again?”
Auntie Vickie Roach, Yuin woman and formerly incarcerated woman:
“Too many women, particularly Aboriginal women, die in jail while on bail. These women have not been convicted of any crime. Why should suspicion of criminality due to skin colour too often be a death sentence?”
Amanda George, Flat Out founder and Board Member:
“Desperate parents want intensive support services for their kids, not prison cells. These laws are a cheap shot at buying the votes of the wealthy. Jacinta Allan – read the history, save lives and communities, and stand up for what’s right.”
Flat Out stands with the family of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson, and our colleagues at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and across the justice sector, to call for the urgent introduction of Poccum’s Law:
Remove the presumption against bail,
Grant access to bail unless the prosecution shows that there is a specific and immediate risk to the safety of another person; a serious risk of interfering with a witness; or a demonstrable risk that the person will flee the jurisdiction,
Explicitly require that a person must not be remanded for an offence that is unlikely to result in a sentence of imprisonment,
Remove all bail offences
Flat Out is a small, grassroots community organisation that has been supporting women, trans and gender diverse people to get out and stay out of prison for over 36 years.