Lock up, Locked Out

Peter Jeffs, Untitled 1, 1995-2000/2007, gelatin silver photograph, 115x174cm. From the exhibition Time and Distance at Centre for Contemporary Photography 2008.

The greatest power for progressive social change lies precisely with the excluded. The people who can best define and interpret the reality of exclusion and socio-economic insecurity are also potentially the only ones who can, in the end, determine the means towards, and the ends of, social inclusion.

John Falzon's eloquent article in Human rights Defender, Volume 17: Issue 1: August 2008, provides an overview of service delivery and advocacy to the most marginalised in our communities in the context of devolution of state responsibilities and "diminishing rights of citizens".

Further, the coercive corralling of disadvantaged groups into the low end of the labour market may result in the lowering of labour costs, but this in itself can act as a disincentive for business to actually invest in training and technological innovation. In other words, productivity increases can be discouraged because profit margins are increased on the backs of cheaper and more compliant labour.