by Dee McLachlan
Aboriginal people in Australia are massively over represented in the criminal justice system of Australia. They represent only 3% of the total population, yet more than 28% of Australia’s prison population are Aboriginal.
Reported in 2016, the imprisonment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was 2253 per 100,000 in 2014-15, or 15 times the rate of the rest of the population.What is going on?
Well, a new documentary looks at the imbalance in the prison system in the US.
The 13th is a Netflix original documentary directed by Ava DuVernay — and features Jelani Cobb, Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates, and many others, who provide a political and emotionally driven dissertation on the problems with the racially provoked legislation (created by the American government). The documentary creates a thought-provoking narrative using strong statistical evidence to offer an understanding that modern-day slavery exists in the United States of America — and essentially that the prison system has just replaced slavery.
The script (an extract):
“The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. Think about that. A little country with 5% of the world’s population having 25% of the world’s prisoners? One out of four? One out of four human beings with their hands on bars, shackled, in the world are locked up here, in the land of the free.
“We had a prison population of 300,000 in 1972. Today, we have a prison population of 2.3 million.
“The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world…
“History is not just stuff that happens by accident. We are the products of the history that our ancestors chose, if we’re white. If we are black, we are products of the history that our ancestors most likely did not choose. Yet here we all are together, the products of that set of choices. And we have to understand that in order to escape from it. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution makes it unconstitutional for someone to be held as a slave.”
In reviewing the film, these are film critic Shelby Fielding thoughts:
“I’ve grown up in a white, middle class, law enforcement family that has strong conservative beliefs…
“…the [13th] amendment purposefully states that slavery is legal as long as it is in accordance to punishment for a crime… The film uses a timeline of sorts to convey how former presidential administrations and corporate funded legislation has created mass incarceration system along with a racially painted picture for the American culture… Making every evidential proof lead to the next one and the next one.
“This film blew me away with its… conclusive reasoning that influences their ideology and beliefs to me as an individual. I truly loved it in every way, and agree with the message it is sending to the American people.
“This film is a must see for every American who wants to hear both sides of the argument, and it provides a gritty, fact-driven, and well-directed argument to the idea of the modern-day existence of systematic slavery in America.
A+. 5/5.
Your Basic Emancipation Proclamation
I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
Your Basic 13th Amendment to the Us Constitution, ratified in December 1865
AMENDMENT XIII
SECTION 1
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
SECTION 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
One of Many Laws passed by Congress to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment
18 USC 1583
(a) Whoever—
(1) kidnaps or carries away any other person, with the intent that such other person be sold into involuntary servitude, or held as a slave;
(2) entices, persuades, or induces any other person to go on board any vessel or to any other place with the intent that he or she may be made or held as a slave, or sent out of the country to be so made or held; or
(3) obstructs, or attempts to obstruct, or in any way interferes with or prevents the enforcement of this section,
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
So, Dee, you could re-make your movie “The Jammed” and set it in Chicago instead of Melbourne, and have a happy ending with the sex-slave traffickers headed off to a 20-year jail term. Yay.
In 1968 the US Supreme Court held, in Jones v Mayer:
“Surely Congress has the power under the Thirteenth Amendment rationally to determine what are the badges and the incidents of slavery, and the authority to translate that determination into effective legislation. Nor can we say that the determination Congress has made is an irrational one. . . . Just as the Black Codes, enacted after the Civil War to restrict the free exercise of those rights, were substitutes for the slave system, so the exclusion of Negroes from white communities became a substitute for the Black Codes.
“And when racial discrimination herds men into ghettos and makes their ability to buy property turn on the color of their skin, then it too is a relic of slavery. . . .
“At the very least, the freedom that Congress is empowered to secure under the Thirteenth Amendment includes the freedom to buy whatever a white man can buy, the right to live wherever a white man can live. If Congress cannot say that being a free man means at least this much, then the Thirteenth Amendment made a promise the Nation cannot keep.”
There is some distinction, if any, in a comparison in
Australia of indigenous and non indigenous persons that does not reflect in the statisics, I strongly suspect!
Indigenous people are not incarcerated to the same frequency, in comparison to non indigenous persons, until they have committed multiple crimes.
In other words, they are in cotton wool till the judicial system has no alternative, other than incarceration.
Perhaps it would be socially beneficial to ………. what?
More money, more jobs, some education in social ethics, stuffed if I know.
But the bottom line is that people who are incarcerated, belong where they chose to end up.
Now that should stir up a few politically correct possums?
Go walk down the street in Brewarrina (NSW) and note who is not at school when they should be. Also observe the wet lettuce leaf being thrashed about on local court days in Brewarrina.
Ps. Bring some MickeyMcWilliams to relax.
Before I bring down upon me the ire of responders alleging I am an uninformed rascist.
I have appeared for indigenous accused of paedophelia, as it is termed, all have been acquitted by local juries. The judge stormed off the bench in the second instance in the same week.
I have successfully prosecuted some indigenous accused. Some pleaded guilty as defendants.
One horrendous case involved an indigenous belting his, whatever, with a shovel on a dry river bed. In defence, I set up the Crown to go for manslaughter. (Sorry if man,,,,,, is not sufficiently expressed per the leftist paradigm …… personslaughter, anyone?)
For anyone really interested, read Governor Phillip’s diary re his protection of the partner of ………. what his name, where the Sydney opera House is.
By the way, Phillip describes the sky over Sydney Harbour, filled with cockatoos.
Sorry if I am in error re conent of the diaries, I read them thirty years past.
Wonder if they are even referenced now in our leftist NWO education system censoring Australian history, unless it is in the interests for their own fabricted NWO agenda paradigm.
Came to mind: Bennalong! (SP?)
OK, Ned, you asked for it:
Suspended Queensland policeman Chris Hurley says ‘assault victim wanted to take him on’
By Tom Forbes Updated 6 Oct 2016
Queensland police officer Chris Hurley has told a Gold Coast court the man he is accused of assaulting “came at him” after he pulled over the car he was travelling in.
Hurley, the officer at the centre of the 2004 Palm Island death-in-custody scandal, is accused of grabbing plasterer Luke Cole by the throat and slamming his head against a car on the Robina Parkway in November 2013.
While giving evidence at a hearing in the Southport Magistrates Court, Hurley said he felt threatened by Mr Cole and admitted grabbing his neck, but denied punching and kicking him.
Hurley testified that he pulled the vehicle over after he thought someone in the car had yelled “c***” at him as they drove past an accident that he was attending.
Mr Cole, who was one of four adults in the vehicle, got out of the car quickly and with an aggressive demeanour, the court was told.
“Luke Cole, on that day, wanted to take me on,” Hurley said.
“When Mr Cole got out of that car he came me.
“I thought ‘nuh, I’m in trouble here’.”
Hurley said he grabbed Mr Cole by the upper chest and his hand must have slipped up to the man’s neck.
[and we all know how easy it is to have one’s hand slip up to a person’s neck. I’ve done it myself so many times…]
Yesterday (May 29, 2017) ten protestors were arrested in Las Vegas (the charge: disorderly conduct) re the following (per Yahoo News):
“The protest had been organized by activists upset about the May 14 death of 40-year-old Tashii Brown.
“Department officials say an officer fired a stun gun at him seven times, punched him and placed him in what police say was an unauthorized neck hold.
“The county coroner says it is expected to take several weeks to receive test results to determine what caused the death of Brown.”
I take it that you are basing some case on the fact that some police officers are rascists and/or thugs, liars and criminals.
We know that.
Ever heard of ex det’ Roger Rogerson, now in for life for murder?
Ever read the Nagle Commision findings (late 1970s) with prison officers in NSW belting defenceless prisoners at Grafton?
So what is your point?
I recall prosecuting 2 indigenous for assaulting a police officer in a country town. He was hit with a garbage can and the jury acquitted…. i supect on the basis that the copper, on his last night in town, asked for it. BTW, one of the defendant’s counsel is now a DC judge……. he has no time for crims!!!! !
With respect Mary, there is a great difference in theorising; between those who have been at the coal face for decades, on both sides, with those with their comfortable academic judgemental armchair outlook.
Even if I am in a velvet Jason reliner with satin pillows i can say with confidence that the death-in-custody rate of Aboriginals is high.
Ned, I am in fact interested in, and trusting of, what you wrote above. But you mentioned “cotton wool”. I guess you mean the judges (or the prosecutors?) would furnish the cotton-wool effect.
That’s too bad, and it’s insulting to the good people (not to mention dangerous for them). But if you meant that COPS do the cotton-wooling I just can’t believe you. Have YOU been at the coal face when a Chris Hurley was doing his hand-slips?
Here in the USA there is plenty of persecution of African Americans by police. Within the FBI it is POLICY, or at least it has been in the past. As I have metioned before, Anita Hill stepped forward to give evidence against [Justice] Clarence Thomas at his Senate Confirmation hearing in 1992, as a result of which her PARENTS got harrassed. But that is nothing to what the childen of Malcolm X have undergone. And his grandson was murdered about a year ago.
Nedski, would you please state your message again in 100 words or less type thing. I’m sure it’s important. Is it maybe this: “Don’t give special consideration on race, one way or the other. A crim is a crim.”
I can embrace that.
Ned, I’ve been to the coalface myself, even did a stint with the ‘Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Royal Commission’ (Hal Wooten). There’s plenty of towns out West I don’t ever want to visit again, Brewarrina, Bourke, Walgett to name a few.
The hand-wringing lefties in the cities would never bother themselves to actually spend the night in such towns. Hell, they would have been afraid to take a walk down Eveleigh Street in Redfern during broad daylight. Yet, they ‘know’ with smug confidence what is really wrong and how to fix it.
Myself, I don’t profess to know how to change a culture of tribalism and violence. Perhaps if the urbane SJWs would park their butts out in such towns for a couple of weeks, they could pontificate to the locals a new paradigm. It would make for some great youtube videos.
FBI NICE GUY CITY
Bulletin from TV channel WCBV, May 30, 2017
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller III gave a heart-warming address to Massachusetts college prep school graduates, several days after his appointment to head an investigation into possible connections between Russia and President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
The former FBI director was introduced Monday by his granddaughter before speaking at Tabor Academy, a private school in Marion [Assachusetts]. She was among the graduates.
Mueller said a person is only as good as his word, [I’ll say] and he spoke of the importance of serving his country with humility, patience and integrity.
He referred to his “three families,” naming his personal family, the Marines and the FBI. [How’s about Tamerlan’s family, or Todashev’s family?]
Mueller served as FBI director under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
It doesn’t appear to be widely acknowledged that the US was founded on convict labour and that African war prisoners were merely used to fill in the gap at a much later stage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_prison_systems#Early_settlement.2C_convict_transportation.2C_and_the_prisoner_trade
The confinement of Julian Assange exemplifies the current world system.
Any culture that assumes any sort of disadvantage is bound to fall prey to larceny and drugs; the jailhouse issue is merely peripheral.