Indigenous Australians And The Law

While our current legal system serves the majority of our country well, there are some members of society who experience problems with our law; a major group in society that suffers from such problems is our Indigenous population. This paper will primarily focus on the legal system as it impacts upon Indigenous Australians. Topics that will be discussed will be the over-representation of these people in the judicial and prison system, plus the paper will also address socio economic issues, health issues, educational issues and living standards that place this race of people at a distinct disadvantage in the law. This paper will also make the recommendation that all Indigenous Australian’s sentenced to six months or less will in fact not be sent to prison, but be punished by their own communities’ traditional law. Currently the Australian Indigenous population is drastically over represented in our justice and corrective systems. The Queensland Government in 2004 created the Law and Justice CEO Committee, which consists of a number of chief executive officers from relevant government departments, and is chaired by Bob Atkinson, Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service. This committee was created with one primary goal and that was to reduce the over-representation of Indigenous Queenslanders in the judicial system.   The goal set by this committee is to reduce the over-representation of Indigenous incarceration by 50% by the year 2011(Director General, 2006).

Australia’s Indigenous population from the late 80’s holds the record for the most incarcerated people in the world, statistically exceeding even the figures for the black South Africans during the apartheid regime (Harris, 2004). In June 2002, the Indigenous population of Australia, making up only 2% of our country’s then 18 million population outside of jail, had 4,494 members of their race incarcerated, making up 20% of our prisoner population. The figures for younger generations are even higher;...