'Good kid, mad system': the role for health in reforming justice for vulnerable communities

It is time to re-define our criminal justice system to redress the over-reliance on incarceration as the means of achieving safer communities.  A substantive reconfiguration of mental health, disability and substance misuse services is essential to provide comprehensive treatment rather than punish for vulnerable people. An innovative policy that is gaining traction is justice reinvestment (JR).  As a systems-based approach, JR encompasses a comprehensive range of areas such as health, housing, employment, justice, family support, mental health and substance misuse services. It impels policymakers to consider the implications of current punitive polities that result in more incarceration, particularly of Indigenous Australians, and instead fund initiatives that redress the health and social determinants of incarceration

Applying Crime Prevention and Health Promotion Frameworks to the Problem of High Incarceration Rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Populations: Lessons from a Case Study from Victoria

This article examines what kinds of policy reforms are required to reduce incarceration rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through a case study of policy in the Australian state of Victoria. This state provides a good example of a jurisdiction with policies focused upon, and developed in partnership with, Aboriginal communities in Victoria, but which despite this has steadily increasing incarceration rates of Indigenous people. The case study consisted of a qualitative analysis of two key justice sector policies focused upon the Indigenous community in Victoria and interviews with key justice sector staff. Case study results are analysed in terms of primary, secondary, and tertiary crime prevention; the social determinants of Indigenous health; and recommended actions from the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. Finally, recommendations are made for future justice sector policies and approaches that may help to reduce the high levels of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people