Greens MP Sees a Better Way of the Future
6th May 2013
Greens WA Member for the Mining and Pastoral Region, and spokesperson on Aboriginal issues, Robin Chapple MLC, has praised Kalgoorlie MLA Wendy Duncan’s call for a local remand centre.
“I agree that there is an urgent need for facilities such as these to be available in regional areas.
“Few things I encounter in public life are as heart-rending as the stories which I hear concerning young people torn away from their country by our inadequate justice system.
“In many cases, these youngsters are not convicted, but they and their families and communities wind up suffering this horrendous sentence of deprivation and abandonment nonetheless.
“This week’s turnabout from the government on justice reinvestment, through its new Corrective Services Minister Joe Francis, gives me hope that we might at long last make some progress towards a better way - where communities might see far fewer of their future citizens enmeshed in our current one-size-fits-all system.
“Let’s work really hard to keep our regional kids out of the system – local remand facilities are a good interim measure, but not good enough to be seen as the complete solution”, Mr Chapple concluded.
