Research Essay
Purpose: To develop an original research piece addressing a key issue in Indigenous Justice
Value: 50%
Word count: 2000 words (+ references). You have +/- 10% leeway with the word count. Word count includes all text in your essay (i.e. in-text references, headings, etc), but excludes the bibliography.
Instructions:
Answer one of the following essay questions:
What is therapeutic jurisprudence? What value does this approach have for the administration of justice within settler-colonies? Do you think the Koori Court might be considered a practising example of therapeutic jurisprudence?
How do discourses of race and racism influence the quality and access to justice for Indigenous Australians?
Discuss the role Indigenous interpreters in the administration of justice. Why are interpreters necessary functionaries in the administration of justice for many Indigenous Australians?
Why do you think access to interpreters has historically been restricted in many settings in Australia, and to what effect?
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody emphasised the social, cultural and legal issues underlying the incarceration rates and deaths of Aboriginal people in custody.
Why was a Commissioner specifically appointed to oversee social issues (Commissioner Dodson, Western Australia)?
The imprisonment rates of Aboriginal people have continued to rise, despite the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody’s final recommendation of “imprisonment as a last resort”.
Discuss the impact of policing on Aboriginal people. For this question students will need to examine how over-policing and under-policing impact on these rates, the significance of policing culture and so on.
Violence against women is at abhorrent levels in Victoria. Is this an Australia wide problem or specific to Victoria? And how is this pattern of gendered violence impacted by race and racism?
For this question, students will need to use statistics/data to undertake a comparative analysis. Students should also discuss why Victoria is the only state to have a Royal Commission into Family Violence.
Discuss the following – the administration of public spaces is fundamental to the historical and contemporary formation of settler-colonies like Australia. Discuss, focusing in particular on contested public spaces and Indigenous Justice in Australia.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is an international instrument adopted by the United Nations on September 13, 2007, to enshrine (according to Article 43) the rights that “constitute the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world.”.
What significant influence if any, has the UNDRIP had on the quality and access to justice for Indigenous Australians?
Amanda Porter has recently written, ‘Despite centuries of colonisation and imperialism, despite deep structural inequalities, racial discrimination and high rates of victimisation and over-representation in the criminal and juvenile justice systems as well as deaths in police and prison custody, much criminology continues to operate without an acknowledgement of colonialism and its effects.’ Discuss this statement, showing how and why this is the case.