Racism And Discrimination In The Criminal Justice System

1958 Words8 Pages
Lawmakers and criminal justice personnel are meant to be guarded against discriminatory laws, policies and practices and to guarantee equal and effective protection of the law to everyone. However, the sad reality is that discrimination does exist in our criminal justice system. This paper emphasises to show how certain groups in society such as the aboriginals or indigenous people have been discriminated against in some form or another by the police or by the criminal justice system itself.
Racism and discrimination for Aboriginal people is a very real existence. It exists in many various forms - overrepresentation, over-policing, and under-policing. It occurs in every aspect of life where one group has more authority than the other. The main area where inequality and discrimination is widely apparent in Australia is the relationship between the criminal justice system and Aboriginal people. An extensive explanation may be found in the obvious imbalance between the various groups in our society.
Looking at policing is important not only because it is the starting point for involvement in the justice system, but also because the police play an exceptionally prominent and pervasive role in the lives of Aboriginal people in the justice system. Aboriginal people are more likely than non-Aboriginal people to have interaction with the police for grave matters such as being the victim of a crime, a witness to a crime, or being arrested on suspicion of committing a crime.
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