By Sean Malloy
SYDNEY — Jaapalpa is one of only two bail houses for young Aborigines in the whole country. Jaapalpa (the name means gathering place) is a house where young Kooris on remand, who have a high risk of offending again or who have trouble at home are referred instead of being locked up.
91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly spoke to Sue Vincent, Kym Johnstone and Ruth Williams from Jaapalpa. Sue and Colin Vincent are Jaapalpa's house parents. They do just about everything and anything to keep the place working. Kym Johnstone is a worker at Yasmar juvenile justice centre and does volunteer work for Jaapalpa after work at Yasmar. Ruth Williams also works long hours at Jaapalpa as a volunteer.
Jaapalpa accepts Koori juveniles from the ages of 10 to 21. They accept young people only from court referrals, not from police stations. "Otherwise we'd be overrun", says Sue. Up to eight young people can be accommodated at one time.
Kym Johnstone pointed out that "Koori kids make up around 50% of the population at detention centres, just for minor offences. Koori kids are 10 times more likely to get jailed for an offence than a non-Koori kid."
Kym spoke of children of 10 or 11 years old who were in detention and some who had warrants out for their arrest. He also explained that young Kooris were having extra charges laid by police.
"When the police start swearing at them [young Kooris], they start swearing back", says Sue. Extra charges like abusive language, resist arrest, assault police are then included with the original charge.
"These kids are facing five to six charges by the time they go to their first court appearance.
"You get a black kid and a white kid going into court, and I can guarantee the white kid will walk out, but the black kid will be bail refused for the same charges."
"There is no-one to charge the police", adds Kym. "You've got someone investigating police, but that is police investigating police. The law is there to protect the police. They are not here to protect Aboriginal people, they are here to terrorise us."
Many young Kooris are being locked up on remand for weeks, months, and in some cases over a year.
Jaapalpa accepts people from all over NSW. The only other bail house in Australia is located in Brisbane. Koori youth on remand in other states end up incarcerated while waiting for court appearances.
The project receives only $100,000 a year from the Office of Juvenile as funding for three years. Out of this budget, $56,000 is allocated for wages to Sue, Colin and a weekend relief worker.
"We don't have funding to employ other people which we do really need", says Sue. "We have Ruth [Williams] who is working voluntarily ... but we find it hard to get volunteers to come in and work here because we are dealing with young people who have so many problems they are acting out on you.
"Ruth comes on a voluntary basis at eight o'clock in the morning and stays until nine at night. There is not enough staff. We should have two youth workers here, we should have a vehicle, we should have a receptionist."
More than 30 juveniles have been referred to Jaapalpa since its opening in September.
"This is a homely environment and that is the way we want it to be", Sue says. "We want to show these young people there is another side to life ... there's no bars on the windows, there is no alarm system, but we do have rules here."
Residents are organised to do something educational with their time during the day. "We have conditions when they come here, and one condition is that they have to do either an educational program or something constructive during the day.
"We have young people at a Tranby course, a young offenders Tranby course, which is interesting, and they also go out on excursions." Tranby is a college for Aboriginal students.
Sue said it was hard to get young people who had been through the courts into education. "You might have a 13-year-old come through here that has left school at the age of 10. Getting them back into going to school is very hard. That is why we have the Tranby course."
The team at Jaapalpa also face problems that stem from their underfunding. Ruth and Sue described the difficulties they have with the location.
"Because we are situated in the inner city, our first flow of young people came from Redfern. We are situated just a hop away from where their offending history comes from. So they tend to sneak out over the balcony late at night", says Sue.
"If we had a bail house in Campbelltown or Mount Druitt, then young people who are offending in the inner city could be transferred out there rather than being here, in the same environment."
Brisbane's bail house, which is a farm, is adequately funded compared to Jaapalpa, having received $1 million from Corrective Services and $69,000 from black deaths in custody money. As a result, it is now self-sufficient.
Sue Vincent even had to purchase a vehicle used by Jaapalpa out of her ng my own vehicle to take kids to court, to take them to see solicitors, to take them to doctors, to take them to report and to take them out for excursions", said Sue.
Sue, Colin and Ruth's work at Jaapalpa means dealing with the problems that young people there faced, including dealing with the police.
"This is a safe house; the police cannot come in and charge or arrest the kids from inside this house", says Sue.
"Nine times out of ten", young people who come to Jaapalpa need "a lot of love and affection, things that they don't get, things that they are not used to.
"We need a lot more bail houses. If we had a lot more bail houses, there wouldn't be one Koori kid in custody."