Carly Stanley from Sydney has just released her new Churchill Fellowship report into community-led responses and innovative approaches to combat overrepresentation of First Nations people in the Australian criminal justice system.
Carly’s Fellowship took her to the United States where she engaged with multiple community-led organisations working with justice-involved and justice-impacted peoples and is now advocating for change in the way our justice system treats First Nations people of Australia.
“We know that First Nations people of Australia are grossly overrepresented in the child protection child protection and justice systems. This involvement perpetuates a cycle of intergenerational grief, loss, trauma and disadvantage.” said Carly.
Adam Davey, CEO of the Winston Churchill Trust welcomed Carly’s report: “I encourage Australian jurisdictions at both the State and Federal level to take on board and implement Carly’s learnings and recommendations.”
Carly believes that changing the cycle of disadvantage, trauma and justice-impact starts with funding community-led initiatives to put justice-impacted and justice-involved First Nations people at the centre of the solution.
Carly’s new report explores how the knowledge gathered from organisations overseas is transferable to the Australian justice system. Carly details well-developed and pioneering community-led responses to overseas justice systems and identifies emergent key themes, supported by academic publications.
Carly’s report details the benefits of early intervention, emphasising the importance of prevention and diversion to reduce the number of First Nations people in Australia entering the justice system.
“True lived experience, culture, healing, self-determination and a deep community connection must be the heart and soul of all work with First Nations people and communities” said Carly, asking that people in charge of change “don’t talk about us without us”.
