The Impacts of Drug and Alcohol use on Sentencing for First Nations and Non-Indigenous Defendants

This paper examines the ways personal use of illicit substances and alcohol are constructed as either mitigating or aggravating factors to explain offending. We consider differential constructions these for people who appear in supreme district courts northern Queensland, Australia, offences involving substance use, drug-related offences, violence. Qualitative analysis courtroom observations is understood through lens Critical Race Theory (CRT). Our findings reveal that was primarily by legal practitioners an indicator disadvantaged circumstances when discussing non-Indigenous defendants. In cases, drug connected other disadvantages such poor mental health, physical pain, trauma. contrast, raised factor First Nations defendants, a flaw linked violent offending, overshadowed interrelated many defendants experience. reflects social attitudes about people, reinforces individualistic explanations offending patterns, points institutional racism embedded structural processes Queensland's higher continues profoundly impact people.