Aboriginal Over-representation and Discretionary Decisions in the Nsw Juvenile Justice System

We would also like to thank Phil Anderson for his assistance with statistical analysis and Joy Wundersitz for information about research in South Australia. This is a project supported by a grant from the Criminology Research Council. The views expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Council. Introduction This paper presents the final findings from an analysis of all court appearances and police cautions in NSW during 1990. Using a combination of police, welfare and Aboriginal Legal Service data the authors have identified the Aboriginally of all those with formal police interventions in that year. This has allowed the first analysis of the treatment of Aboriginal children at all stages of the criminal justice system in NSW. The aims of this research report are: * to illuminate the causes of over-representation of Aboriginal children in the NSW justice system, at least to the extent that discretionary decision-making affects Aboriginal young people; * to suggest detailed strategies to reduce this over-representation. Background The present study has grown from a lack of comprehensive information about how the police and courts deal with young Aboriginal people. Only one study, by Gale et al (1990), has compared the treatment of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people throughout a justice system. This report used official data to look at all young people dealt with in South Australia during the early 1980's. The study also provides important methodological considerations in the study of over-representation. The context in which the current research was developed was the fact that Aboriginal ymith comprise around 25% of juveniles held in NSW juvenile detention centres, and that it had been claimed that NSW had the highest rate for Aboriginal juvenile incarceration in Australia (Wootten, 1989, p.79). More recent research indicates that Western Australia exceeds NSW in the rate of Aboriginal juvenile detentions (Cunneen, 1990, p. 15). However the basic point concerning the high level of over-representation of Aboriginal juveniles at the most serious end of the NSW juvenile justice system remain?. In NS\V there have been valuable but limited insights into the treatment of Aboriginal juveniles Early research established that some communities in NSW have large numbers of Aboriginal youth appearing before the Children's Court for criminal matters and have relatively high rates of committals to institutions (Chisholm, 1984; Luke, 1988a; Cunneen & Robb, 1987). Chisholm's (1984) research indicated important differences in juvenile criminal charge patterns …