The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that Indigenous people account for about a quarter of Australia's prison population, vastly disproportionate to their numbers in society. The imprisonment rate of Indigenous Australians is five times higher than that of Black South African men during Apartheid; and higher than African American rates in the US today.
In 2023, the AHRC funded Professor Barry Godfrey, Professor Paul Cooke, and Dr Katherine Roscoe to again work with communities in the far northwest of Australia. Roebourne (which has become notorious as one of Australia’s most crime-plagued) has a resilient but vulnerable community where young people suffer multiple disadvantages. Two thirds of children have been sexually assaulted, and one third of adult men have been imprisoned. Many young people in custody had previously visited their own fathers in custody. The killing of a 16-year-old Indigenous boy by Roebourne police was the impetus for the 1991 Inquiry into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. However, the community of Roebourne itself has a dramatically different story to tell. One which involves strong collective identities, hope, culture and educational progress.
Professor Barry Godfrey on local radio in Roebourne
Barry and Paul worked with teachers and students at Roebourne High School to develop media training and the ability of students to tell their own stories. The students made two films about their lives and their hopes for the future, which will be shown at the Red Earth Arts Centre (REAC)’s 476-seat theatre on 8 May 2024. Their films present a very different narrative to the usual stories of crime, drug-use, domestic and child sexual abuse in Roebourne.
Students involved in media training at Roebourne High School
Student involved in media training at Roebourne High School
The colonial legacies of crime, racist policing, and the over-imprisonment of indigenous people were also explored in films which will also be shown at REAC in May 2024. 'Truth-telling' was highlighted and publicised by the ABC, The Guardian, and is a recent winner of the best film on History/Social Movements at the Sydney Film Festival. Made with the community, it explores how colonial legacies persist in this part of Australia, and will also be shown at REAC in May 2024.
The larger settlement next to Roebourne is the rapidly growing Karratha (Australia’s newest city, created by a mining-boom), which is unhelpfully characterised as a "wealthy but uncultured brash newcomer", which has little heritage or history. But the ‘newest city in Australia’ has also grown into a thriving community of new migrants to the area. Katherine talked to a range of people to learn how new communities are formed and how they plan to develop Karratha. These oral history interviews will be showcased at REAC and stored for future use in Karratha Library, forming an oral time capsule for future students and researchers to access. Perhaps the longest-lived legacies of this project will be the skills that the young people learn in film- and interviewing techniques, raising aspirations, and providing routes to greater involvement in their own community and its past and future.
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