9.2 Policy

This project reveals distinct policy failures associated with the over-representation of Indigenous people with mental and cognitive disability in the criminal justice system. Rather than ‘falling through the cracks’ of early intervention and care and protection safety nets, our findings highlight the default and systematic channeling of thousands of Indigenous people with mental and cognitive impairment into management by police, courts and corrections from an early age. This emerges as an almost inevitable outcome of the institutional racism, disadvantage, stigma, discrimination and neglect experienced by this vulnerable group in Australian society, creating their multiple and complex support needs. This project has brought a critical Indigenous lens to the over-representation of Indigenous people with mental and cognitive impairment in prison, highlighting the legacy of colonisation in the ongoing control, containment and institutionalisation of Indigenous people. Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data indicate that without an explicit holistic coordinated policy approach to supporting Indigenous people with mental and cognitive disability in the community, the inevitability of their management by the criminal justice system will only be compounded. Given this, concerns about the approach taken to date by the NDIS are explored in this section.