Racism And Discrimination In The Criminal Justice System

However, there is still hope. While the injustices of the Stolen generation, massacres and centuries of mistreatment against Indigenous Australians can never be erased, we can create future in which these atrocities never occur again. These atrocities emerge from ignorance and fear, so working to understand Indigenous culture must surely be the only path to removing the racism that plagues Australia. We have so must to learn from the rich cultural history of Indigenous Australians, particularly in their spiritual relationship with the land they have lived on for thousands of years. If we embrace this incredible knowledge, not only will we eliminate the barriers preventing equality in our society, we will also be stronger as a nation in both environmental and social relations. Ultimately, we have the potential to become an example to the world of the way a nation’s people can overcome their past mistakes and pave a future of cultural sharing for the benefit of all

Policing in today’s society has been impacted through a multitude of influences including social, political, and economical to name a few. One factor that has, in more recent years, left its imprint within policing is race. Race, brings up the subtopics of ethics, corruption, accountability, and public views on policing. The following paper will discuss these subtopics to help further understand why and how race plays such a significant role in current day society and policing.

Ah Australia. The land of opportunity. The land of freedom and equality. The land of wealth and good health. The lucky country.

Introduction and thesis: The topic chosen for this essay concerns the relationship between racial profiling and sentencing. It is relevant to the course material because it concerns the ways someone is treated depending on his or her ethnic origins, and it makes it an interesting sociological and criminological phenomena. This is the reason why I chose to write on this topic, and because I find it an important issue in our society. This essay will demonstrates that visible minorities are more likely to be subjects to harsher sentencing than the majority, and more than them.

The Ngunnawal People have been living within the borders and surrounding mountains of the Australian Capital Territory for over 25,000 years. The way the Indigenous people used the land to live off was extremely efficient and sustainable. They had a bounty of knowledge about the land surrounding them, and over generations, devised resourced management skills to ensure maintenance of the animals and plants, and most importantly, the land in which provided these things. Aboriginal culture existed long before Captain Cook arrived in Australia in 1770. He claimed the land to be "Terra-Nullius", meaning that the land did not belong to any person. This claim obviously seemed ludicrous and crazy to the Indigenous people whom already lived on the land.

Some women are afraid for their lives, that if they leave their partner, they or their family will be harmed. In Heavenfire’s case, she truly loved and cared for Falardeau and did not want to see him go to jail for his crimes. Falardeau financially supported Heavenfire and she did not want to involve her family for support if she were to leave Falardeau. Heavenfire’s was an exceptional case as she was the first aboriginal to be cleared of all charges in her husband’s killings. Inequality in the criminal justice system is evident. Indigenous people are incarcerated at much higher rates than non-Indigenous in Canada and are incarcerated for longer periods of time (Cook & Roesh, 2012, p.222). Canadians have put Indigenous communities through much heartache and pain. With the colonization of Indigenous people to residential schools, Canadians continue to stigmatize and treat Indigenous people poorly. Indigenous people are more likely to suffer from drug abuse using needles because of the intergenerational trauma suffered through their parents attending residential schools in Canada (Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman, 2014, p. 327). This puts them at a higher criminal risk than others because of what they have been subjected to. Reasons et al., (2016) found that, “offending and victimization are a consequence of multiple risk factors,

International prison population statistics have found that the female prison population is increasing at a faster rate than the male prison population. Research has confirmed that, in the majority of countries, the male imprisonment rate is predominantly larger than that of the female imprisonment rate, however this does not apply to indigenous women within Australia. Overwhelming research shows that the imprisonment rate for indigenous women within Australia has increased at a significantly faster rate compared to indigenous males, most clearly highlighted through the general trends in prison rates within the last decade. This essay will discuss how the presence of indigeneity plays a key role in explaining the disparity between male and female imprisonment rates, further explaining why indigenous women are incarcerated at significantly highly rates. Moreover, there are numerous sociological and criminological theories, which provide an explanation for the disparity of male and female imprisonment rates. Furthermore, this essay will also discuss the social implications of these prison population trends in relation to criminal justice polices, other social policies related to

I believe one of the most significant referendums in Australia that was carried, is the 1967 Referendum to include Aboriginal people within Section 51 and 127 of the Constitution. Prior to the 1st of January 1901, the Australian Constitution took effect and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed. Under the laws of the Australian Government, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were not included as citizens. Instead they were treated as foreigners in their own land.On the 27th of May 1967, a Federal referendum was held to determine whether two references in the Australian Constitution, which discriminated against Aboriginal people, should be altered or entirely removed. At the time of the referendum, Harold Holt was the Prime Minister

Domestic violence in Aboriginal community is a cause for concern regarding Aboriginal women 's health and safety. According to Kubik, Bourassa, and Hampton (2009) “In Canada, Aboriginal women have faced destruction in their communities and families as a result of multiple forms of oppression. Aboriginal women experience the highest rates of violence and abuse of any population in Canada”(p.29). Domestic violence is defined by Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary (2015) as “ the inflicting of physical injury by one family or household member on another; also: a repeated or habitual pattern of such behavior”. The objective is to look at the cause of domestic violence aimed at Aboriginal

The intention of my research is to expose the racist tactics in the criminal justice system that have been camouflaged. I am prepared to explain how racism contributes to the vast number of incarcerated African Americans, and other minorities. The criminal justice system has created and perpetuated racial hierarchy in the United States, and has done so throughout history. I propose the question: Are minorities being targeted within the Criminal Justice System? African Americans are criminalized and targeted because of their skin color, and it is not fair. This argument connects to the theory of Law in the Book vs. Law in Action, and relates to how this type of discrimination from the law affects society. In particular, the way the Law is written in codes, statutes, judicial opinions that supposedly support the righteousness of justice, is a far cry from the way the Law actually operates. Despite substantial progress in recent years, racial discrimination remains a significant problem in the United States. I will prove this argument with the help of various peer-reviewed articles, and non-scholarly article that examine this unequal behavior.

Over these many years, many personal stories have come out about their experience being an Australian Aboriginal. Beulah Pickwick who is an Australian Aboriginal has shared her story (National). She has experienced a lot of prejudice over the years (National). Beulah grew up with an enjoyable childhood growing up by the Tweed River (National). Growing up she did not suffer much from racism besides some police harassment when was hanging out with her white friends (National). She had many white friends during her childhood (National). She never thought much of the different between those friends and her besides when the police would come up, always treating her different from her friends (National).

incarceration rates among Aboriginal adults were 3.3 to 5.1 times higher. In short, these socio-

This criminal code encourages sentencing judges to have recourse to a restorative approach to sentencing. Also, the enactment of s. 718.2 (e) is a definite direction by Parliament to pay particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders during the sentencing process because those circumstances are unique and different from those of non-Aboriginal offenders. Further, when sentencing Aboriginal offenders, courts must take judicial notice of such matters as the history of colonization, displacement, and residential schools. And they should look at how that history continues to translate into lower educational accomplishment, lower income, higher unemployment, higher rates of substance abuse, suicide, and, of course, higher levels of imprisonment of Aboriginal peoples. (Canadian Law, an Introduction 6th Edition: Neil Boyd 2015; page,

The way that society sees you should not depend on the colour of your skin. Even today, in the 21st century, people in our society judge other human beings by their colour or race. One of the main racism issues is the discrimination towards our Indigenous people. National data from the Challenging Racism Project reveals that 27% of Aboriginal people over the age of 15 experience racism more than once in their life. Racism towards Indigenous Australians includes mostly verbal abuse such as name-calling and insulting language. Exclusion from workplaces and social events also plays a major part in the racial discrimination. Do we really want Australia to be seen as such a racist and prejudiced nation? What can we as individuals do to stop this racial hate from going on? All of this is happening because we stole the Aboriginal people’s land. If we had

The rationale behind these polices was to protect children, a though that aboriginal people would die out and the belief that aboriginal people frowned up miscegenation. Other claims suggest that this was part of the attempt to whiten Australia. The horrific irony here is that there are few if any aboriginal families which have not been impacted by these child removals. It has created an array of psychological issues, an increased risk and exposure to sexual abuse, a taught rejection of their culture, a loss of links to the land, an inability to participate in cultural and spiritual life with their communities and not being able to have a native title. Quite often the intuitions and families in which these children were placed with were more damaging and detrimental to their health and wellbeing that if they had remained with their families. These events have left a long term festering wound on a severely disadvantage proportion of the country. Which has gone way past call the question of justification but rather what compensation is needed and what reconciliation can be done. With postcolonial theory it challenges the dominate and submissive expectation that comes with a colonising and colonised population and reflects the results of a forced