Overrepresentation of Indigenous Women in Australian Prisons

Running head: CRIMINAL LAW
CRIMINAL LAW
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

CRIMINAL LAW1
Introduction
Indigenous people in Australia have been living in the country and its surrounding for
almost 60,000 years, even before colonisation happened. Indigenous people consist of the
Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islanders. Even though there are a lot of similarities between
the people from the Aboriginal communities and indigenous people of Australia, each of the
communities can be seen as being greatly diversified. In the recent years overrepresentation of
indigenous people in the prison population has been one of the most urgent human right issue
faced by the criminal justice system of Australia. A significant rise is seen in the number of
Aboriginal people imprisoned in the last few years, and the rate is noticeably higher among the
incarceration of the women from indigenous community (Anthony, 2013). In the essay a detailed
discussion has been conducted about the overrepresentation of the Australian indigenous
community in the prison system of Australia. The essay will particularly focus on the Australian
women of indigenous communities who are considered as being in a disadvantaged position.
Further the statistical data focusing on the Aboriginal and indigenous prison population have
also been provided in this essay. The essay also focuses on the rates and the reasons for the
recidivism among indigenous people.
Aboriginals and the criminal justice
The definition of criminal justice can be said as delivering justice to the people who had
committed serious crime and it also can be seen including the rehabilitation of the people who
have offended or to prevent crimes and to provide any kind of support moral or psychological to
the victims of the crime. The criminal justice system helps tremendously in the prevalence of

CRIMINAL LAW2
control and order in any society and helps in investigating crime and to be protecting the Human
Rights which are basic to any person whether a victim or an accused. In the current years the
overrepresentation of indigenous people in the Australian prisons have been considered as one of
the most urgent human right issue faced by the Australian criminal justice system.
The Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islander are the inhabitants in Australia and its
surrounding islands (Cunneen, 2014). There had been many structural similarities between the
Aboriginal people and the people from indigenous community, however the communities can be
found as greatly diversified (Short, 2016).
In the eyes of the higher court the characterization of indigenous offenders has been
changed significantly shifted from being objects of sympathy to becoming objects of risk. For
years the community has been seen as to be considered dysfunctional or non functional in a
simultaneous way which has resulted for the offenders to be recognised helpless for assisting
victims or being incapable to be defined as an indigenous. In spite of the fact that for the
development and coordination process of slowing down the imprisonment rate of the women in
indigenous communities there has been a widespread concern among the international parties,
for the effective implementation of the development there has been a very low success rate.
The higher overrepresentation rate in the prison system of Australia among indigenous
women can be seen as the lack of awareness. Presently in any demographic that shows the rate of
incarceration in Australia, the rate is seen to be highest among the Aboriginal women. There has
been a significantly higher increase in the incarceration rate of Aboriginal women compared to
the increase in the incarceration rate of Aboriginal men (Anthony, 2015).