To the tune of “One night in Bangkok”, there’s a saying amongst criminal lawyers which goes ‘one night in juvi means a life in prison.’ And the evidence bears this out. A young person who has been in juvenile detention is over 50 per cent more likely to be inside again within two years. And a shocking 70 per cent of those young people inside are likely to end up in adult prison. This is not the life you would wish for any child. But there is something happening in the small town of Bourke in north-west NSW which may turn statistics such as these around. Police, service providers, government funders and locals are joining hands and lending their commitment to the Maranguka / Justice Reinvestment initiative. Maranguka was the birth child of the Bourke Aboriginal Community Working Party, a grassroots coalition of concerned local Aboriginal residents who wanted to see positive change in their community. Translated as ‘caring for others’, the Maranguka proposal they developed is a vision for Aboriginal community empowerment. “It’s all about doing things differently,” says Alistair Ferguson, Chair of the Aboriginal Community Working Party. Alistair is a born and bred local who after a stellar career […]
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