The Uniting Church WA wholeheartedly welcomes the Premier’s commitment to reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody, and calls for further action.
The Uniting Church WA (UCA WA) welcomes recent news that Premier Mark McGowan will make reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody a key priority of this Government. The Uniting Church Western Australia has a long history of advocacy regarding prison justice and the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody.
The UCA WA believes that Western Australia’s high incarceration rate, particularly the persistent and growing over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the justice system necessitates an urgent overhaul of Western Australia’s policies relating to the criminal justice system. The UCA WA has advocated for improvements to the West Australian justice system, including calls for an end to mandatory sentencing, ending the practice of imprisoning people for unpaid fines, and reforms to the processing of women and vulnerable people, for more than 15 years.
