decades later, was one of the young lawyers involved in setting up the ALSWA. The Western Aboriginal Legal Service was founded by
Essie Coffey,
George Winterton,
Robert French and others. Winterton had previously been involved in providing
pro bono (free) legal advice to Aboriginal people. The poverty and legal injustices suffered by Aboriginal people in the area were a contributing factor in the founders becoming involved in legal representation and advocacy for them; in 1969 Aboriginal people constituted 25% of the prison population in Western Australia, while being only 2.5% of the population. Curfews directed against Aboriginal people were common in some areas until the early 1970s, and detention without cause and unprovoked physical attacks by the police also occurred. In 1972 the group wrote to the Australian government asking for a small amount of money to enable a roster of lawyers to be available to represent Aboriginal people locally. To their surprise, the newly appointed minister for Aboriginal affairs,
Gordon Bryant, eventually responded asking how much financial support would be required from the government to provide legal representation for Aboriginal people in the whole of the state of Western Australia.
Rob Riley was CEO of the organisation from 1990 to 1995. By the 21st century, Aboriginal people make up 40% of the prison population in Western Australia, despite still only constituting 3.5% of the population, and 65% of juveniles detained within the legal system are Aboriginal people. In 2009 the ALSWA represented a 12-year-old Aboriginal boy who was charged with receiving stolen goods after he had been given a chocolate
Freddo frog stolen from a shop in
Northam near
Perth;
Colin Barnett, the Premier of
Western Australia, subsequently said that the frog had "held the whole police system up to ridicule". After missing a court date in connection with the matter, the boy, who had no previous convictions, had been arrested and held for several hours in a police cell. Peter Collins, director of the ALSWA at the time, suggested that the charges were because the boy was Aboriginal, and that the same action would not have been taken against a "non-Aboriginal kid from an affluent Perth suburb with professional parents". Northam police denied this, and said the boy had come to their attention in the past. The charges were subsequently dropped, and an order for legal costs of one thousand
Australian dollars was made in the boy's favour. From 2011, the organization has held special consultative status with the
United Nations Economic and Social Council. ==Custody Notification Service==