Introduction
The slogan ‘Jailing is failing’ has gained traction among penal abolitionists and Indigenous justice advocates in Australia, highlighting the perceived ineffectiveness of incarceration as a response to social harm. This essay examines the extent to which the slogan encapsulates the links between colonialism, intergenerational trauma, and the disproportionate imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Drawing on penal abolition theories, it argues that while the phrase captures key dimensions of systemic failure, it risks oversimplifying the structural roots of over-incarceration rooted in ongoing colonial relations. The discussion begins by outlining the historical and contemporary context of Indigenous imprisonment, before analysing abolitionist frameworks and their application to Australian realities.
Colonial Legacies and Intergenerational Harm
Colonial policies in Australia, including dispossession, the Stolen Generations, and assimilation, have produced enduring forms of intergenerational harm that continue to shape Indigenous experiences of the criminal justice system. These policies disrupted kinship structures, language, and cultural practices, leading to elevated rates of trauma, substance misuse, and family violence in many communities (Cunneen, 2018). Such harms are not merely historical artefacts; they manifest in contemporary cycles of contact with police and courts. Cunneen (2018) demonstrates that sentencing practices frequently overlook the cumulative effects of colonial violence, instead applying standardised risk assessments that pathologise Indigenous defendants. This dynamic perpetuates a carceral response to problems that originated in state-sponsored dispossession rather than individual pathology. In this sense, the slogan ‘Jailing is failing’ resonates because imprisonment reproduces the very conditions of marginalisation it claims to address.
Over-incarceration and the Limits of Reform
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples constitute approximately 3 per cent of the Australian population yet account for roughly 30 per cent of the adult prison population. This over-representation cannot be explained by crime rates alone; rather, it reflects the racialised operation of policing, bail, and sentencing (Cunneen, 2018). Lewis (2021) contends that reformist measures such as Indigenous sentencing courts and diversion programmes have produced only marginal reductions in imprisonment. These initiatives remain embedded within a punitive paradigm that expands rather than dismantles carceral control. Consequently, the slogan ‘Jailing is failing’ usefully signals the exhaustion of reformist strategies that leave the underlying architecture of colonial criminalisation intact. However, Lewis also cautions that abolitionist rhetoric must be accompanied by concrete campaigns for decarceration if it is to avoid remaining purely aspirational.
Penal Abolition Theories and Their Australian Application
Penal abolition theory, as articulated by Brown and Schept (2017), rejects the notion that prisons can ever deliver justice and instead calls for the dismantling of carceral institutions alongside the creation of community-based responses to harm. Their framework of “new abolition” emphasises the need to address the material conditions—poverty, housing insecurity, and health inequities—that feed incarceration. Applied to the Australian context, this approach illuminates how Indigenous over-incarceration functions as a contemporary extension of colonial governance. Brown and Schept (2017) argue that critical carceral studies must move beyond reform to envision non-punitive futures. In Australia, this entails recognising that many behaviours labelled criminal are survival responses to intergenerational trauma; therefore, jailing individuals merely recycles colonial violence under a different name. Additional scholarship reinforces this view: Blagg (2016) highlights the failure of “justice reinvestment” initiatives that remain tethered to carceral logics, while Anthony (2020) documents the ways in which Indigenous women’s incarceration is driven by welfare and child-protection interventions that echo earlier assimilation policies. Finally, Baldry et al. (2015) demonstrate through longitudinal data that post-release support is routinely inadequate, ensuring high rates of re-incarceration that further entrench disadvantage.
Evaluating the Slogan’s Explanatory Power
While ‘Jailing is failing’ effectively condenses the abolitionist critique, its explanatory reach is partial. The slogan foregrounds the futility of imprisonment yet pays limited attention to the active role of the state in producing the social conditions that lead to criminalisation. A more thorough abolitionist analysis, informed by Brown and Schept (2017), would link prison failure to the broader carceral continuum that includes policing, surveillance, and child removal. Moreover, the slogan may inadvertently imply that alternative “non-failing” forms of punishment could be devised, thereby reproducing rather than transcending carceral thinking. Nonetheless, when deployed alongside demands for self-determination and resourcing of Indigenous-controlled services, the phrase retains utility as a mobilising tool. It captures the visceral reality that prisons exacerbate harm for communities already bearing the weight of colonial dispossession.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the slogan ‘Jailing is failing’ partially captures the relationship between colonialism, intergenerational harm, and Indigenous over-incarceration by spotlighting the counterproductive nature of imprisonment. When read through penal abolition theory, however, its limitations become apparent: it underplays the structural continuities of colonial governance and the necessity of transformative, non-carceral alternatives. Sustainable change requires not merely fewer prisons but a fundamental reordering of social relations that addresses the root causes of harm. Future criminological inquiry must therefore centre Indigenous voices in the development of genuinely decolonial justice practices.
References
- Anthony, T. (2020). Indigenous women and the criminal justice system. In T. Anthony & C. Cunneen (Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of criminology and Indigenous justice (pp. 145–162). Routledge.
- Baldry, E., McCausland, R., & McEntyre, E. (2015). A predictable and preventable path: Aboriginal women in the criminal justice system. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission.
- Blagg, H. (2016). Crime, Aboriginality and the decolonisation of justice (2nd ed.). Federation Press.
- Brown, M., & Schept, J. (2017). New abolition, criminology and a critical carceral studies. Punishment & Society, 19(4), 440–460.
- Cunneen, C. (2018). Sentencing, punishment and Indigenous people in Australia. Journal of Global Indigeneity, 3(1), 1–22.
- Lewis, R. (2021). Prison abolition and reform in Australia: A case for campaigners to take abolition seriously. Alternative Law Journal, 46(1), 22–28.
