Incarceration And High Disproportionality Of Aboriginal Offenders

The case highlights the complexities of achieving justice, especially in cases involving historical injustice, systemic racism, and power dynamics. While the legal system made efforts to address the situation, the broader context of social and historical factors suggests that there is still work to be done in ensuring full justice for victims of crime. Thus, the Australian legal system's effectiveness in achieving justice for victims of crime may be limited by deeper societal issues that need to be addressed for a more equitable and just legal system. The case of Kumanjayi Walker highlights the longstanding issues of injustice and discrimination faced by indigenous communities in Australia, and raises questions about the ability of the legal system to address these systemic issues. The legal system is not operating in a vacuum, and its effectiveness in achieving justice for victims of crime is influenced by broader societal factors such as historical injustice, systemic racism, and power

Unlike jail or prisons, which create an expensive cycle of violence and crime, these alternatives actually prevent violence and strengthen communities. Community corrections programs provide

The evaluation was looking at three components of re-offending to see if circle sentencing was effective. Firstly, if circle sentencing reduced the frequency of offending. Secondly, did participation in circle sentencing increase the time to the next proven prison offence and lastly, did circle sentencing reduce the seriousness of any further offending (Circle Sentencing). Fitzgerald used a quantitative method of study for this evaluation. Attending to the first component, Fitzgerald examined 68 offenders from circle sentencing, 40 from Dubbo, 24 from Nowra and 4 from Brewarrina. Fitzgerald also used a control group of offenders from local courts outside of Sydney (Circle sentencing). In addressing the second and third components, Fitzgerald examined 153 offenders from circle sentencing, 12 from Armidale, 10 from Bourke, 11 from Brewarrina, 63 from Dubbo, 14 from Kempsy, 15 from Lismore, 2 from Mt Druitt and 26 from Nowra (Circle sentencing). 21,324 indigenous offenders sentenced outside of Sydney between 2002 and 2007 were used as the control group. Overall, Fitzgerald reached the conclusion that circle sentencing had no impact on the frequency, seriousness or timing of offending (Circle sentencing, 30). However, this should be interpreted with caution. The results from this evaluation have the potential to be skewed as over fifty per cent of circle courts analysed were from Nowra and Dubbo. Fitzgerald also assumed the profile of communities, the kind of offence or offenders, the overall appropriateness of Aboriginal elders, project officers and resources available in each community were the same (Circle sentencing). Instead, nothing points to this being true. The CIRCA found each of these factors have the potential to impact the effectiveness of circle sentencing (circle sentencing, 31). Fitzgerald also noted “it should not be concluded that circle sentencing has no value simply

Therefore the Incarceration of Indigenous Australia is a social issue that needs to be address through government policy and community action (Wahlquist, 2015). In addressing Indigenous Incarceration there should be focus on the risk factors to prevent Indigenous Australia entering the corrective services (Krieg,

This essay looks at Indigenous Australians in relation to the institution of ‘Criminal Law’. In this context, criminal law refers to legal processes such as police questioning, investigation and detainment as well as arrest, custody and bail. It also encompasses associated court procedures up to the point of sentencing. The focus will be to first outline the importance of criminal law to Indigenous Australians and then provide a critical analysis of the unique experiences and barriers that this group encounter in accessing criminal law in a positive way. Following this analysis, the development of possible ways to improve Indigenous access to criminal law will be discussed. Particular attention will be given to the way in which Indigenous Australians are affected by the transition of our modern justice system toward broader social justice concepts that incorporate risk management of potential criminal behaviour. From this discussion a conclusion will be drawn as to whether or not Indigenous Australians enjoy equality of criminal law and whether the structural elements of the law itself perpetuate Indigenous injustice and disadvantage.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) in 1991 provided documentation on the death of indigenous Australians in prison or police custody. In doing so the report highlighted the substantial over representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Criminal Justice system and provided detailed analysis of underlying factors. The reports findings were believed to be the foundation of change. However, regardless of a range of policy changes and crime prevention programs in repose to the report, over representation in the criminal justice system remains. The issue is one of the most significant social justice and public policy issue in the contemporary Australian criminal justice system. The RCIADIC made 339 recommendations, most of which have been implemented into the criminal justice system over the past two decades. Never the less the systematic over representation remains prevalent. The purpose of this essay is to understand over representation as it exists in the contemporary criminal justice system. Particular emphasise will be placed on the levels of women and youths in the criminal justice system, their contact with the system and empirically based risk factors pertaining to over representation. An evaluation of alternative programs in the pre and post sentencing stage and the impact such programs would have on the over representation will be conducted.

How often do we stop to think about the minorities of this country and how they become involved and are treated in the criminal justice system? I surmise; only some of us will concern ourselves with such details. For some like myself; we might work with individuals of the Aboriginal community or have interacted with members of this group whether through school or work. Canada “had an Aboriginal identity in 2011 of 4 % or 1.4 million people” (Kelly-Scott and Smith, 2015). Of this total there is a gross overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in Canada’s Criminal Justice System. This overrepresentation of Aboriginals in the CJS comes as a result of socio economic factors, sentencing reforms, systemic discrimination, education and employment and victimization of Aboriginal women. In partial fulfilment of this course, this paper will address the leading factors which has led to the overrepresentation of this group in the CJS.

Minister if you will turn your attention to the following chart, which shows a comparison of imprisonment rates between different countries. It is thoroughly disappointing to see that the Aboriginal’s represent Australia with such substantial numbers. Minister there are alarming numbers the gravity of this situation transfers to other areas. Furthermore Western Australia the Aboriginal imprisonment rates are at an astounding 3,741, in comparison to the Aboriginal people the rest of Australia at

The Justice system seeks to prevent crimes and to capture those who have committed crimes. But what are the causes of crime, maybe poverty, or greed, or is sometimes caused by the system. Is the risk worth the reward and is reward the worth risking the punishment? Power and influence is threaded deeply into the Criminal Justice System. Are all offenders caught and processed with the same demeanor and given the same punishment? The system needs to be impartial to all offenders regardless of the offender’s social position, job or yearly income. The general punishment for most crimes is incarceration in most states with a difference in duration to adjust per each crime. This is the deterrent against crime. This is what should be keeping

Bopp and Bopp (2007: 45) argue that the tendency of making use of uniform strategies in restorative justice loses values and often overlooks the heterogeneity of identities as well as the experience of the native people. This means that it is important to acknowledge the differences amongst the aboriginal people. It is evident that the use of retributive model of justice has been used in many of the corrections in Canada. This method has not been effective in reducing crime amongst the aboriginal people.

This critical essay will be explaining Braithwaite’s and other studies’ opinions and suggestive on restorative justice, theories behind it and how it can be applied in order to have a healthier society-offender relationship.

To map the development and recognition of disadvantage stemming from Aboriginality as a mitigating factor when sentencing Indigenous offenders in Australian courts.

The over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system is a large problem in society and reasons as to why this may be occurring need to be examined (Walker & McDonald, 1995; AIC, 2013). Indigenous Australians make up less than three per cent of the overall Australian population, however Indigenous people are over-represented in Australian prison populations, with imprisonment rates that are around 12 times those of the rest of the Australian population (AIC, 2013). Rates of over-representation are even higher in juvenile detention, with a 10-17 year old Indigenous person being around 24 times more likely to be in detention than a non-Indigenous person of the same age (AIC, 2013; Cunneen & White, 2011). Indigenous Australians overrepresentation in the criminal justice system is usually due to offences pertaining to violence and public disorder (ABS, 2010; Hogg & Carrignton, 2006). This is endorsed by the fact that Indigenous Australians currently make up 40 per cent of those imprisoned for assault offences (AIC, 2013). The over representation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system may be attributed to a variety of reasons, known as risk factors (AIC, 2013).

Provision [SCRGSP], 2005; Jeffries and Bond, 2012). It is also widely discussed that there is an overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system itself (Jeffries and Bond, 2009), representing up to one quarter of prisoners in Australia (Makkai and Payne, 2003; Payne, 2005). This essay will address the current issues that Indigenous Australians face within the criminal justice system, particularly, with courts. The aim of this essay besides addressing these issues will also be to provide suggestions or alternatives that may help resolve the presented issues and improve the experience for Indigenous Australians in court.

Throughout the history of Canada, we have acknowledged Indigenous cultures as being the first people of Canadian land. However, society has not treated them as equal members of society since the first explorers settled. The Euro-Canadian culture has impacted the Indigenous people negatively; as a result injustice between the two cultures has developed and inequality has widened as the two cultures interact more frequently. Lisa Monchalin (2016), author of the text The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada, noted multiple reasons how Aboriginal people are discriminated against in society, and how they are over-represented in Canadian correctional system. In society, according to Aylsworth, L., and Trovato, F. (2012) of The Canadian Encyclopedia, the indigenous population was approximately 4.3% of the total Canadian population, yet, the 2015-2016 Annual Report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator noted “an unabated increase in the number of Indigenous people behind bars, a rate now surpassing 25% of the total federal incarcerated population” (2016, n.p.). This raised the question as to why there was such a blatant over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system. Indigenous history has been speckled with injustices, hardship, discrimination, racism, and have been on the receiving end of multiple attempts to rid Canada of Indigenous ways and people. The history of these