Considering the Need for Congruence in Closing the Gap, Target 10: Reducing High Rates of Adult Aboriginal Incarceration

The federal and Western Australia (WA) state governments have made a national commitment to reducing high rates of Aboriginal adults held in incarceration, using, respectively, justice reinvestment and bureaucratic inclusion of Aboriginal representatives and organisations. This aspiration is also being pursued by an Aboriginal team who seek to establish a place-based Aboriginal justice support service in a WA regional town. The proposed service is underpinned by a combination of justice reinvestment and restorative justice principles and aims to use peer support workers who will effectively increase community agency in justice matters. This article examines congruence between federal, state and local initiatives to achieve Target 10 through the lens of the Aboriginal team’s efforts to deliver a place-based service. The article determines that the multi-level efforts are not intersecting in their corresponding efforts to achieve Target 10 and will likely result in failure or frustration. The article concludes with the recommendation of creating congruence in communication and dialogue to increase the likelihood of reduced Aboriginal incarceration rates in regional settings.