Drugs and alcohol are the main causes for Indigenous peoples' crimes, says Sydney criminal lawyer

Ljupka Subeska is a criminal lawyer who has had her own legal practice with offices in the City of Sydney and Kogarah for thirteen years. Representing multiple Indigenous peoples' crime cases before the courts in Australia, Ms. Subeska gave an overview of the causes and challenges these people experience in and out of court.

Ljupka Subeska, Sydney based criminal lawyer Source: Supplied by Ljupka Subeska / photo credit Marko Babic

Although Indigenous people make up 2% of Australia's total population, they make up 27% of the total number of inmates in prisons.

Statistics say: In 2016, almost 20 out of every 1,000 indigenous people were incarcerated for some crime.

It's seventeen times more likely an Indigenous versus a non-Indigenous person to end up in prison.

In 2016, the rate of imprisonment for Indigenous women (464.8 per 100,000) was not only higher than that of non-Indigenous women (21.9 per 100,000), but was also higher than the rate of imprisonment of non-Indigenous men.

Rehabilitation centres are full, people apply for a bed at the start of the trial. Some of these centres offer special drug and alcohol withdrawal programs as well, but the waiting list is longer than 6 months, making them inaccessible to most offenders.

At the height of NAIDOC week, we tried with Ms. Subeska to shed some light on the issue and get her opinion on what she thinks the States should do to reduce the pressure on the Indigenous community.