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Aboriginal Youth Disadvantages

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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 and injustice involves their contact with criminal law institution. 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-represented in court cases and community detention, leading to fewer life chance in their future (Allard et al. 2010). Additionally, Indigenous youth’s social disadvantage in criminal law institutions has led to barriers that prevent indigenous youth from accessing and achieving justice. This essay …show more content…

Although Indigenous youth experience disadvantage in many areas, criminal law is the most prominent area. It has been established the significant impact contact with the CJS has with indigenous youth and subsequently the chance of them experience further disadvantage (Allard et al. 2010). With 59% of Indigenous youth occupying juvenile detention centres when they only represent 5% of all young people in Australia and are 25 times more likely than non-Indigenous youth to be imprisoned, it is clear to see the over-representation of Indigenous youth in contact with criminal justice agencies is more than just an individual problem and is caused by the functioning of criminal law institutions to not provide Indigenous youth with adequate access to achieving justice (Amnesty International 2015). These findings suggest the running of criminal law institutions act in a way that negatively impacts Indigenous youth and brings them into contact with the CJS more than non-indigenous youth, proposing that discrimination plays a part in this …show more content…

In order to better achieve justice through these institutions, it is suggested that legislation changes are needed to reduce the biased impact police discretion powers have on Indigenous youth’s contact with the CJS (Indigenous Justice Clearinghouse 2010). Additionally, police recruitment training should be re-structured to focus more heavily on how to properly engage with Indigenous youth and better understand Indigenous cultural awareness through sociological imagination in the hopes that will form a connect between Indigenous youth and police officers (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs 2011). Furthermore, it is strongly encouraged that the Australian Government redirect funding to legal aid services that provide sufficient support to indigenous youth, eliminating language barriers and cultural unawareness in the hopes this support will help reduce the structural inequality facing Indigenous youth and redirect youth out of detention centres into community-based detention where they can be looked after by their own communities (Productivity Commission 2015; Lawry and Ludlam 2010). By implementing

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