The Police and Indigenous Juveniles in Victoria

Dalton V. , Australian Deaths in Custody and Custody-related Police Operations 1999, No. 153, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra, 2000; Australian Bureau of Statistics, (ABS) National Correctional Statistics: Prisons — March 2000, National Corrective Services Statistics Unit, 2000.

See United Nations, Press Release, 24 March, p.2, at <http://www.unhcr.ch/Huricane/>.

Gardiner G. , Indigenous People and Criminal Justice in Victoria: Alleged Offenders, Rates of Arrest and Over-representation in the 1990s, Criminal Justice Monograph, Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies, Monash University, 2001.

See Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Experimental Estimates of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 30 June 1991 – 30 June 1996, AGPS, Canberra, Cat. no. 3230.0 1998; and, ABS Population by Age and Sex, June 1992 to June 1997, AGPS, Canberra, Cat. no. 3201.0, 1997.

Penalty notices and traffic offences are not included within the Victoria Police Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP) system, nor are arrests for drunkenness. Arrests of Aborigines for drunkenness are recorded on a separate database. Victoria Police condense over 1500 offences into 23 offence categories, grouped into three general classes: Crime against the person; Crime against property; Other crime. See Victoria Police Crime Statistics 1996/97, Victoria Police, Melbourne, 1997, p.12.

Alleged offenders ‘[r]efers to persons who have allegedly committed a criminal offence and have been processed for that offence by either arrest, summons, caution or warrant of apprehension’. Victoria Police, above ref 5, p.6. Offenders are counted for each occasion they are processed within the one year, but only for the most serious offence on each occasion.

A ratio of over-representation was calculated by dividing the arrest rate (alleged offenders processed) in 1000 population for Indigenous people by the rate of arrest (alleged offenders processed) in 1000 population for non-Indigenous people.

In the period, and according to the Victoria Police, the racial appearance of any offender or victim is ‘… based on the subjective assessment of the attending police’. Victoria Police, above ref 5, p.7. (Since November 1997 police have been instructed to ask interviewees; ‘Are you of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent?’). In the period, juveniles were defined by Victoria Police as ‘… persons under 17 years of age at the time of reporting being victimised or processed for allegedly committing criminal offences’ Victoria Police, above ref 5, p.7.

Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCADIC), National Report, Australian Government Printing Service, Canberra, 1991, Overview and Recommendations, p.6.

RCADIC, above ref 9, Overview and Recommendations, p.6.

RCADIC, above ref 9, Vol. 2, pp.275–82.

Recommendations 234–245, RCADIC, above ref 9, Overview and Recommendations, pp.84–87.

See Gardiner G. and Mackay M. , Arresting Koories: A Review of Victoria Police Statistics 1995/96, Koorie Research Centre Discussion Paper 7, Monash University, 1997; and, Mackay M. , ‘Aboriginal Juveniles and the Criminal Justice System: The Case of Victoria’, (1996) 21(3) Children Australia pp.11–22.

See Neilson M.O. and Silverman R.A. , (eds), Native Americans, Crime and Justice, Westview Press, 1996, pp.58–74.

Non-Indigenous male juvenile alleged offenders totaled 22,043 in 1996/97, in a population of 543,962.

Indigenous men in Victoria are processed as alleged offenders at the extraordinary rate of almost 330 in 1000 of population, See Gardiner G. , above, ref 3.

In Table 1, note the dramatic rise in 1994/95 in assault, motor car related theft, and other summary offences processed, a result sparking public debate at the time, and partially reversed the following year, see Gardiner and Mackay , above ref 13.

Gardiner , above, ref 3.

Juvenile alleged offenders refers here in method of processing to male and female juvenile alleged offenders.

RCADIC, above ref 9, Overview and Recommendations, pp.84–85.

Aboriginal Affairs Victoria, Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody: Victorian Government 1994 Implementation Report, Department of Health and Community Services, Melbourne, 1995, p.225.

Gardiner and Mackay , above, ref 13.

ie 39.8% of Indigenous juvenile offenders were on summons, with a similar percentge of 38.9% for non-Indigenous juveniles; and other processing was 2.1% of the total (2.2% for non-Indigenous).

Mackay M. , Victorian Criminal Justice System Fails ATSI Youth, Koorie Research Centre, Discussion Paper 1, Monash University, 1996.

RCADIC, above ref 9, Overview and Recommendations, p.50, recommended (no.86) that in circumstances of interventions initiated by police the use of offensive language should not be the occasion for arrest.

A matter pertaining to non-Indigenous juveniles as well.

Aboriginal Affairs Victoria, above, ref 21, p.103.

Cunneen C. and McDonald D. , Keeping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People Out of Custody: An Evaluation of the Implementation of the Recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Office of Public Affairs, Canberra, 1996, p.124.

RCADIC, above, ref 9, Overview and Recommendations, p.50.

RCADIC, above, ref 9, Overview and Recommendations, pp.49–51, pp.79–83.

The Victorian Aboriginal Justice Agreement, Victorian Department of Justice, Melbourne, 2000.

Office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Indigenous Deaths in Custody: 1989–1996, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Canberra, 1996, p.viii.