Aboriginal Youth Disadvantages

Indigenous Youth & Criminal Law Institutions
Introduction
Indigenous Australian youth experience high levels of disadvantage and injustice in today’s society in a variety of areas. One area of significant disadvantage involves their contact with criminal law institutions. Indigenous youth come into contact with the criminal justice system (CJS) at a consistently higher rate than that of non-Indigenous youth and are significantly over-presented in court cases and community detention (Allard et al. 2010). This disadvantage has led to barriers that prevent Indigenous youth from accessing and achieving justice. This essay will identify and discuss such barriers as the lack of legal representation and the use of discretion by criminal justice
In 2011-12 Indigenous youth were found to re-enter the CJS nearly two times that of non-Indigenous youth (Council of Australian Government 2014). Indigenous youth’s high imprisonment and reoffending suggested structural inequality is involved. By criminal law institutions not providing appropriate support for Indigenous youth to be reintegrated back into the community, these young people find it difficult to improve their life chances outside of detention, resulting in them resorting to crime and entering an intergenerational offending cycle (Australian Human Rights Commission 2008; Council of Australian Government 2014). It can clearly be seen the importance criminal law institutions have in determining whether Indigenous youth will achieve justice or not. As it stands, Indigenous youth’s current experience with criminal law institutions is one of negative encounters and a lack of appropriate support that enables barriers to prevent access to
It’s suggested that limited training in cross-cultural engagement is the cause of this going unchecked. For example, police recruitment in states such as the Northern Territory receive minimal Indigenous specific cultural awareness training, leading police officers to be unequipped in dealing with Indigenous youth appropriately in the public sphere (HRSCATSIA 2011). This inability to deal sufficiently with Indigenous youth has led to bias judgement influencing discretion use, resulting in Indigenous youth receiving harsher discretion simply due to their race and lottery of birth. It is evident to see how influential police’s direction is on Indigenous youth’s contact with the CJS and how this discretion is misused due to person bias as a barrier to youth accessing justice in criminal law