“I don’t like it in jail. I don’t like it in there. Scary place. You got no families in there, no brothers or sisters to talk to. You’re on your own. You’re on your own.” Marlon Noble, an Aboriginal man with an intellectual disability, spent a decade in prison without a conviction after he was declared unfit to plead.
His story was told in the documentary Presumed Guilty. Three years after Noble’s release, an estimated 30 people remain in prison without a conviction.
Rosie Anne Fulton, a 24-year-old Aboriginal woman from Alice Springs, is one of those people. Fulton was arrested in Western Australia over driving offences in early 2012.
A magistrate found that Fulton was unfit to plead due to intellectual impairment. Instead of being returned to Alice Springs, she was issued a supervision order to complete in prison.
She has spent the past 21 months imprisoned in Kalgoorlie. Fulton’s legal guardian, Ian McKinlay, argues that this is much longer than the sentence she would have received if she had been able to plead and been found guilty of the charges. “At the moment this outcome is almost entirely reserved for Aboriginal and Indigenous Australians”, he told the ABC’s Lateline program in March.
According to reports by WA’s Inspector of Custodial Services, more than 60 people are being held under the Mentally Impaired Accused Act. Indigenous people make up 30 percent of those. Currently, only one of the 18 Indigenous people held under the Act has been placed in an appropriate care facility.
Mark O’Reilly from the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Service also told Lateline that Rosie’s situation is not unique. “We’ve had situations, for example, where following the ordinary process, someone might be looking at three or four months in prison. We’ve had people in jail for four or five years, just waiting for an outcome.”
The attention Fulton’s case has received has led to the announcement that she will be moved back to her hometown of Alice Springs. However, even though she has not been convicted of an offence, she will be able to return only under the supervised care of the Northern Territory Health Department.
The Australian criminal injustice system usually targets the most vulnerable and marginalised people in society. Fulton’s case is no exception.
