Imprisonment of Indigenous people with cognitive impairment: What do professional stakeholders think? What might human rights-compliant legislation look like?

Recently the Senate released Terms of Reference for an Inquiry into the Indefinite Detention of People with Cognitive Impairment or Psychiatric Illness in Australia.1 The Senate Inquiry will provide an opportunity for the stories of Marlon Noble, Rosie Ann Fulton and many other Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) Australians to be heard. Marlon Noble spent 10 years in a Western Australian prison even though he had not been convicted of a crime. Rosie Ann Fulton, whose case drew national media attention in 2014, had been charged with criminal offences, but it was found that due to her fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, she would not understand the criminal proceedings and was unfit to plead. Despite the court making a ‘supervision order’ in her case, Rosie still spent over two years in prison, due to no secure facility being available for her care and support. These experiences have come to symbolise the plight of those who have languished in prisons for years due to the insufficient number of secure care facilities available for people with cognitive impairment in the community. The work and lobbying of sector advocates such as Damian Griffis from First Peoples Disability Network and Patrick McGee of La Trobe University and the Aboriginal Disability Justice Campaign, and academics such as Professor Eileen Baldry from the University of New South Wales, among others, has cut through, and the Federal Parliament now has an opportunity to address the significant human rights issues raised by the Australian Human Rights Commission in their July 2014 report on this topic.