Structural Inequality And Young Indigenous Males In Australia: Analyzing The Criminal Justice System

Structural Inequality

This is an analytical essay based on criminal law institution and how it deals with the young indigenous people in Australia (Azzopardi et al. 2013). The criminal system of Australia is based on the objective that there should be equality before law and no one should be discriminate in case of caste, creed, or race (Larsen 2014). The reality is different. There are discrimination regarding the young indigenous people and they get minimum opportunity in case of every possibility. The crime rate among the indigenous class of people is at hike. The essay has pointed out the topics like the barriers they have to face, the position of the aboriginal in case of criminal justice and the process secured by the criminal justice system to ensure them maximum opportunity so that they can easily get access to the justice.

Indigenous people of Australia are the aboriginal categories (Tong et al. 2015). In Australia, there is diversity in every sector of the society and there is a yawning gap between the indigenous and non-indigenous people (sarre and Prenzler 2014). The criminal justice system of Australia has two objectives, such as to secure the benefit of people irrespective of caste, creed, race, sex and to redress imbalance caused by people who tries to take advantages from the society (Dammer and Albanis 2013). However, in reality, there is great injustice takes effect in case of indigenous people. The Australian justice system discriminates the young indigenous people and a structural inequality has been observed in every sector that deals with them.

Structural inequality: Structural inequality denotes a system where a particular class of people faces an unequal status as compared with other categories (Lotz 2015). Structural inequality is deeply rooted into the social and justice system of Australia. Structural inequality takes place when there is a social division presents in case of caste, creed, race, ethnicity, sexuality and age (Lee and Baykal 2017). There should be a unity to establish social justice as unity is not possible if there is diversity in society. There should be equal distribution of economic resources, equal health care and protection and there must be an equal legal enforcement in the society to ensure justice.

Social justice is very much related to the criminal justice. The crime rate increased only when there is an inequality takes place based on caste, creed, race, sex, age. There should be a good communication in between the judicial system and common people of the society. The interaction rate of indigenous people with the police in Australia is quite frustrating. Structural inequality restricts the positive chances of any social group and pushes them towards the darkness side of the society. The same thing can be noticed in case of young indigenous people of Australia. The racial discrimination is also responsible to validate the social injustice. The ideology behind the race and level of birth has an impact on the positive aspect of life. It is a common parlance in Australia that the white race privilege gets many facilities than the others. This rule gives birth to social injustice and provokes the unprivileged sector of the society to the darker place.

Criminal Justice and Indigenous People

Criminal justice and Indigenous people: The young indigenous Australians have to experience a unique interaction with the criminal justice system in Australia. They are represented before the criminal justice as both offender and victim. Though the rate of population in case of young indigenous people in Australia is medium, and they has to face certain inequalities regarding that too. The rate of detention of young indigenous people is thirty one times higher compared to the non-indigenous people (Jewkes, Crewe, and Bennett  2016). According to the recent survey by Australian Bureau of Statistics, the crime rate and imprisonment rate of young indigenous are disproportionately higher. The Australian criminal jurisprudence is embedded with inequality and fails to provide equal opportunity to the young indigenous people so that they can get free access to justice.

The main criminal attribution by the indigenous people is violence including family violence, child abuse, illicit uses of drugs, custodial deaths, refusal of bail, poor health, low educational achievement and low employment advantages (Clifford,  McCalman, Bainbridg  and Tsey 2015). These situations work as the primary key to put in a disadvantaged position and these help to increase the risk of committing crime. The disadvantages and inequality that assured by the society cause a great effect upon their life and they started to lose their faith on the justice system of the country.

Role of criminal law institutions: As per the recent census, the interaction reaction in between the young indigenous and criminal law is getting worst day by day and there are certain barriers that restrict them to achieve justice. The criminal law institutions can provide the indigenous people to achieve their post and get a free access to justice. The law system has to become much wider in case of indigenous people and it has to ensure maximum help to the aboriginal person. The quality of life style of indigenous people should be developed and the white privilege system must be stopped (Miller and Hefner 2015).

Kinds of barriers: Barriers mean obstacles that are faced by the indigenous people in accessing justice (Gibson et al. 2015). Justice through the criminal law institution is crucial to improve the quality and life chances of the indigenous people. The most common barriers are extensive policing, lack of awareness in case of indigenous culture, linguistic problems, lack of proper support and inadequate access to legal representation.

Over policing is a process to regulate a certain group of people more to the others. Young indigenous people need more attraction than the non-indigenous person. The police has to take certain measures to increase the interaction process with them. Continuous presence of the police, surveillance and security can increase the interaction level amongst the police and indigenous people, which will help them to free access to justice. The white race privileged should be get stopped for a better consequence. The police are frequently arrest them in normal cases like use abusive language and this provoked them to lose their trust over the justice system. It has been observed that after getting arrested, they are unable to get free access to legal system. Sometimes they become victim of custodial deaths. These need to be stopped as soon as possible.

Role of Criminal Law Institutions

Language is also a serious problem to deal with the indigenous people. The kind of language of the community is a mixed one and often it become illegible to the others to understand the views of them and that leads to a serious problem.

Criminal justice process: The objectives of criminal justice system are to provide much opportunity to the person in general and to ensure that no discrimination can take place in the social system. It is important to implement necessary policies and practices to fulfill the criteria. There must be an equal situation present to prevent crime. The system of criminal justice is not predictable. As such the justice system need to be more pragmatic in dealing with the sensitive matters like young indigenous people. The survey report reveals that the crime rate in the indigenous people is progressively got higher. There are certain things present that play an important role in provoked the aboriginal persons. Often it is seen that the legal assistance assured to the indigenous person are not serious. They got minimum assistance after getting arrest. These help them to lose their faith on police and judicial system of the state.

To combat these inabilities, the system regarding the indigenous people needs to be solved. The indigenous people should get many opportunities that can help them to achieve the justice. Their way of life need to be corrected by the system. The criminal rate between the people are getting higher. The criminal law system should ban the white class privileges and secure justice to all irrespective of caste, sex and race. Adequate access to legal representation can improve their condition and they can be depended on legal system in lieu of committing crime (Nathan et al. 2016).

The criminal law institutions are important to make a correction to the system of justice that are parochial in nature. The barriers like unequal justice system, lack of police interaction, inadequate access to legal representations prohibit the group of people to ensure justice. It is important to deal with this matter more seriously and to ensure them proper justice. The victimization rate of the indigenous people is also high. So police protection is needed and there should be free access to the justice. The provision need to be adopted as early as possible because there is a proverb in judicial proceeding- justice delayed, justice denied.

Reference:

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