This book is a 1990 account of the ways in which young Aborigines were at a disadvantage before laws and legislation had been introduced, intended to improve their position. Aboriginal Youth and the Criminal Justice System focuses on South Australia, where detailed statistics are available, in a sophisticated analysis of the exact nature of the discrimination experienced by young Aborigines. Fay Gale, Rebecca Bailey-Harris and Joy Wundersitz examine the criminal justice system in operation; from the initial intervention by a police officer, through the process of screening and assessment to the final outcome - which all too often is a criminal record. The research clearly shows that at every point where discretion was exercised within this system, Aboriginal youths received the harsher option. Thus disadvantage is heaped on disadvantage until young Aboriginals were imprisoned at 23 times the rate of other young Australians. Even for those who escaped detention, participation in the criminal justice system was often such an ordeal that it became a form of punishment in itself. Discretion, though preferable to inflexible rules could operate against a group whose lifestyle and values differed from mainstream society.
Motivated by growing doubts about the value of a welfare approach towards the processing of young offenders, law reformers in recent years have advocated a shift towards more traditional “justice” principles. This article examines the rhetoric of the “back to justice” trend in one Australian State, South Australia, where in 1976, a Royal Commission into juvenile justice argued in favour of a system which, at least at the adjudication stage, was based firmly on the notions of adversarial justice and due process. Central to this traditional approach is the trial where accused persons invoke their rights by pleading not guilty and putting the prosecution to the test. Yet, as this article demonstrates, the overwhelming majority of young persons in South Australia forego these rights by admitting the allegations made against them. Thus the rhetoric of adversarial justice and the Due Process Model is incompatible with the reality of the routine admission of guilt.
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