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Mackay, Michael; Smallacombe, Sonia --- "Aboriginal Women as Offenders and Victims: the Case of Victoria" [1996] AboriginalLawB 29; (1996) 3(81) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 17

Aboriginal Women as Offenders and Victims: The Case of Victoria

by Michael Mackay and Sonia Smallacombe

When the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody released its long-awaited Final Report in 1991, many within both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities expressed their support for the 339 recommendations it contained. Close reading of the Final Report reveals the Royal Commission, despite investigating the deaths of twelve Aboriginal women, paid only scant attention to the plight of the female Aboriginal population under what is a culturally foreign criminal justice system. In fact, there were almost no recommendations aimed specifically at reducing female contact with the law or reducing levels of violence against Aboriginal women.[1] Subsequent reports by bodies such as the National Committee to Defend Black Rights (`the NCDBR') have been critical of the Royal Commission on this point.[2] In recent times, violence against Aboriginal women has been the subject of disturbing reports from Western Australia[3] and the Northern Territory,[4] whilst bodies such as the NCDBR have continued to raise awareness about the ways in which Aboriginal women are over-represented both in terms of arrest and as victims of personal violence.[5]

In terms of capturing the media spotlight, the Victorian Aboriginal community's high level of contact with the criminal justice system has been considered somewhat less newsworthy than the horror stories coming out of the states with larger Aboriginal populations. Subsequently, until recently, there has been little in the way of research into the level of contact Aboriginal people have with the criminal justice system in Victoria. One way of measuring Aboriginal contact with the criminal justice system is through utilising the statistics produced by the Statistical Services Division of the Victorian Police, who, using their powerful Law Enforcement Assistance Program (`LEAP') computer system, collate figures pertaining to sex and race of both offenders and reported victims of crime.[6] In this paper, police statistics pertaining to both Aboriginal female and non-Aboriginal female offenders and victims in 1993-94 will be used to provide some kind of description (albeit, a limited one) of the position of Aboriginal women in relation to contact with the criminal justice system.

Data sources and methods

Definition of offenders

In 1993-94, Victorian Police statisticians used the term `offenders' to refer to `... persons [of all ages] who have allegedly committed a criminal offence and have been processed for that offence by either arrest, summons, caution or warrant of apprehension between 1 July 1993 and 30 June 1994 regardless of when the offence occurred'.[7]

Also counted as offenders were people who were not actually charged with any offence for legal reasons. Three arrests of the one person in one year was counted as three offenders. However, if a person was arrested once for three different charges, they were counted only once. The only offence counted was the most serious offence for which a person was processed. Penalty notices, arrests for public drunkenness and traffic offences were not included on the LEAP system. Sex of offenders was one of the variables collated by the LEAP system. For convenience, persons described as `offenders' will be referred to as `arrests' in this paper.

Definition of victims

Victorian Police counting procedures for victims of crime classify victims as being either persons, businesses, statutes or other, meaning that the classification is dependent on the specific nature of the offence. In this paper, statistics pertaining only to victims who are recorded as persons are utilised. Like the rules for offenders, `[v]ictims who are victimised on more than one occasion are counted for each occasion'. Once again, these statistics are broken down according to the sex of the victim.

Police definition of Aboriginality

Victorian Police statistics pertaining to both offenders and victims are broken down according to the racial appearance of both victims and offenders. Racial appearance is `... based on the subjective assessment of the attending police'.[8] Whilst this reliance upon subjective judgments of police must be considered somewhat unreliable, it must also be recognised that this is probably the only statistical measure of contact with the criminal justice system at the entry level currently available. For the purposes of this paper, where a person's racial appearance is unspecified,[9] they are counted as non-Aboriginal.

Police Districts and populations

The Victorian Police split the state of Victoria into seventeen distinct geographical areas, known as Police Districts. Police District boundaries are based on Local Government Areas, with the exception of Police Districts A and B for which Census Collector's Districts are utilised. Police Districts A to K are referred to as metropolitan districts, and L to Q as country districts. Maps of these Police Districts are contained in Figures 1 and 2. Both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations of Police Districts were calculated by the Victorian Police Statistical Services Division using population statistics from the 1991 census.[1]0

Rates of arrest and rates of victimisation

Rates of arrest for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal females are calculated by dividing the number of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders in each particular category and class of crime by the female Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations of individual Police Districts and the whole of Victoria as of the 1991 census. The resulting figure is multiplied by 1,000 to give a rate per 1,000 population. The same process is carried out for victims of crime, except the rate is calculated per 100,000 population. Calculation of these rates allows comparison between Aborigines and non-Aborigines.

Calculation of the over-representation ratio for offenders and victims

A ratio of over-representation was calculated by dividing the rate of Aboriginal arrest/victimisation per 1,000 population for a particular crime class or category by the rate for non-Aborigines in the same class or category. This calculation was carried out across all Police Districts. The higher the ratio, the higher the level of Aboriginal over-representation. A ratio of one would indicate no over-representation, and a ratio of less than one would indicate under-representation.

Offence classes and categories

In this paper, the standard Victorian Police classification of offence categories and classes are utilised. The crime categories included in each offence class are listed under each class as follows:

Unfortunately, many of the street offences for which the Royal Commission recommended relaxation of laws are grouped in the `other summary offences' category, making statistical analysis of most individual street offences impossible at this stage.

Aboriginal women as offenders

State offending patterns

According to statistics produced by the Victorian Police, Aboriginal women constituted 19.2 percent of all Aboriginal arrests in Victoria in 1993-94, which was only slightly less than the proportion non-Aboriginal females made of non-Aboriginal arrests (19.6 percent). Table 1 provides a percentage breakdown of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders across each crime class and category. Several important differences between the patterns of offending of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal females across the whole state stand out. First, 16 percent of Aboriginal offenders were processed for `crime against the person', compared to only 6.9 percent of non-Aboriginal offenders. In contrast, offenders processed for `crimes against property' constituted 57.8 of Aboriginal offenders, compared with 73.1 percent for non-Aborigines; and 26.2 percent of Aboriginal women processed were arrested for `other crime', compared to 20.0 percent of non-Aboriginal women. The most significant differences between individual offence categories shown in Table 1 are those pertaining to `assault (indictable)' (7.4 percent of Aboriginal offenders compared to 2.0 percent of non-Aboriginal), `assault (summary)' (7.2 compared to 4.2) and `other summary offences' (18.1 compared to 10.8 percent).

Country vs metropolitan Police Districts

There were important differences in the pattern of offences in metropolitan and country Police Districts (see Table 1). Of all Aboriginal women arrested in metropolitan districts, 72.4 percent were arrested for `crime against property', compared to 43.8 percent of those in country districts. Also, 14.3 percent of metropolitan Aboriginal arrests fell into the `other crime' class, compared with 37.6 percent of those from country districts. Perhaps most importantly, in the metropolitan Police Districts, 6.8 percent of all female Aboriginals arrested were processed for the category `other summary offences', compared to 29.0 percent of those arrested in country districts. As mentioned earlier, it is the `other summary offences' category which contains many of the street offences the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found were major contributors to Aboriginal incarceration.[11]

Rates of arrest

Table 2 contains calculations of the rates of arrest of Aboriginal females per 1,000 population across each crime class and category for metropolitan and country Police Districts. In metropolitan Police Districts, Aboriginal women were arrested at a rate of 63.7 per 1,000 population for any offence, with arrests for `crime against the person' coming at a rate of 8.4, `crime against property' at 46.1 and `other crime' at 9.1. In country districts, the rates were quite different across these classes of offences, especially for `other crime', which had a rate three times higher than in metropolitan districts. Amongst crime categories, `other summary offences' displayed the greatest difference in terms of rate of arrest, being 4.3 per 1,000 in metropolitan Districts and 21.1 per 1,000 in country Districts. In terms of over-representation, Aboriginal women were 5.1 times more likely to have been arrested than non-Aboriginal women in metropolitan districts. By comparison, the ratio in country districts was 7.3.

Across Victoria, Aboriginal women were arrested at the rate of 68.0 per 1,000 population in 1993-94 (see Table 3). In the class `crime against the person', Aboriginal females were arrested at the rate of 10.9 per 1,000 population across the whole state, with A (30.9), B (94.9) and N (29.9) districts standing out (see Figures 1 and 2). For `crime against property', the rate was 39.3 for Aboriginal women across the state. Once again, focus on the `other summary offences' category reveals a significant variation. Across the whole state, the rate of arrest of Aboriginal women for offences which fall into this category was 12.3 per 1,000 population, making it the single highest category of offence in terms of arrest rate for Aboriginal women.

Over-representation ratios across Victoria

Using figures for non-Aboriginal females, calculations of over-representation of Aboriginal female arrests in each crime class and category are contained in Table 4. In terms of arrest for any offence, Aboriginal women were 5.7 times more likely to have been arrested than non-Aboriginal women. Across Victoria, Aboriginal women were 13.2 times more likely to have been arrested for `crime against the person', 4.5 times more likely to be arrested for `crime against property', and 7.5 times more likely to be arrested for `other crime' than non-Aboriginal women.

Aboriginal women as victims of reported crime

Of course, the distrust many Aboriginal people feel towards police means that many Aboriginal victims of crime fail to report any offence. However, even those offences that were reported reveal some fairly disturbing aspects of the victimisation of Aboriginal women, particularly in the class of `crime against the person'. Table 5 reveals the number and percentage of victims within each individual class and category and crime for both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal female victim dataset. What emerges from this Table are some obvious differences in relation to the patterns of victimisation. First, 46.9 percent of reported female Aboriginal victims were victims of `crime against the person', compared with only 11.4 percent of female non-Aboriginal victims. In contrast, only 34.4 percent of female Aboriginal victims were victims of `crime against property', compared to 77.7 percent of non-Aboriginal female victims. While these figures do give us an indication of the pattern of victimisation, they do not allow the same type of comparison that rates allow.

Table 6 looks at displays calculations of rates of victimisation of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women (per 100,000 population). Aboriginal female victims displayed a rate of 2,881 per 100,000 population, compared to a non-Aboriginal female rate of 3,918. All up, this equates to under-representation (a ratio of 0.7). Within the class `crime against the person', however, Aboriginal females were reported as being victims at a rate of 1,351 per 100,000 population, which is disturbingly higher than the rate for non-Aboriginal female victims (445 per 100,000). Across this class of crime, this equates to an over-representation ratio of 3.0. If we look at individual categories of crime within this class, Aboriginal women were 3.6 times more likely to be the reported victims of `rape', 6.0 times more likely to be victims of `assault (indictable)', 3.8 times more likely to be victims of `assault (summary)' and 5.9 times more likely to be the victims of `abduction'. The only other category of crime in which Aboriginal females were significantly over-represented as victims was `burglary (aggravated)', an offence which many people would argue should be counted within the `crime against the person' class. What is obvious is that despite the massive under-reporting of crimes against Aboriginal women, police statistics still show Aboriginal women to be far more likely to be victims of reported violent crime than non-Aboriginal women. While these figures may not be as high as in other states,[12] they still paint an alarming picture of what is undeniably a frightening situation.

Conclusions

Just how serious the authorities have considered the contact between Aboriginal women and the criminal justice system (both as victims and offenders) to be is quite clear. For example, the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody examined nine deaths in the Northern Territory which fell within its terms of reference, yet during the years 1987 and 1988, seventeen Aboriginal women were murdered within the same jurisdiction,[13] and no Royal Commission was called to investigate this horrific situation. As mentioned earlier, the Royal Commission did not produce one single recommendation aimed specifically at improving the situation of Aboriginal women in terms of contact with the criminal justice system (as either victims or offenders). At the same time, official monthly correctional statistics produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics[14] do not even split up the Aboriginal prison populations in each state on the basis of gender, making it extremely difficult to carry out any analysis of the over-representation of Aboriginal women in custody. Consequently, there is a plethora of information on the total prisoner population (which allows calculations of monthly variations), but no regular update of the numbers of female prisoners.[15]

This paper has shown that in Victoria, Aboriginal women were over-represented in terms of arrest in 1993-94 by a factor of 5.7, with arrests for `crime against the person' having the highest level of over-representation amongst the crime classes. At the same time, this paper has shown that over the whole of Victoria, Aboriginal women were arrested for offences which fall within the category `other summary offences', more than for any other category (18.1 percent of arrests of Aboriginal females fell within the category), and were 9.6 times more likely to be arrested for this offence in Victoria than non-Aboriginal women. Because of the large number of offences contained within the `other summary offences' category, it is not possible to detect what particular offences contributed to this huge difference in rates. However, one would probably be naïve not to expect that the type of good order offences which the Royal Commission found contributed so greatly to Aboriginal arrest and incarceration were important factors.

This paper also revealed that Aboriginal women were under-represented as reported victims of crime in 1993-94. However, the same statistics revealed that Aboriginal women were 3.0 times more likely to be reported victims of `crime against the person' than non-Aboriginal women. Clearly, even given the vast under-reporting of Aboriginal victims of crime, this revelation, whilst probably not surprising, is extremely disturbing.

Such statistics add to the picture of the hardships faced by Aboriginal women, who are already struggling through the implications of cultural dispossession and alienation. In Western Australia, a 1994 report[16] produced 165 recommendations aimed at reducing the negative impacts of the criminal justice system upon Aboriginal women in that state, including the way in which police-Aboriginal relations contribute to the difficulty many Aboriginal women face in reporting crime, and the problems associated with access to legal advice and services. These were the types of recommendations that the Royal Commission sorely lacked, a point recognised by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Michael Dodson. The time is ripe for a similar report to be carried out in Victoria. As Dodson argues,

`[a]s issues arise which were not dealt with under the Royal Commission recommendations they should be subject to fresh analysis and policy design. They should not be retrospectively classified as issues which an existing recommendation addresses. This will be especially important in considering the rights of Indigenous women whose particular concerns were not addressed by the Royal Commission and whose needs are often inadequately addressed even by existing programmes and policies'.[17]


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