A report has found that widespread structural change to service systems and legal processes is urgently required to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who experience crime are receiving appropriate and effective support.
The 'Ensuring that Aboriginal perspectives inform responses to Aboriginal victims' report - released today after detailed research by RMIT's Centre for Innovative Justice (CIJ) in partnership with Djirra, Elizabeth Morgan House Aboriginal Women's Service and Dardi Munwurro - highlights the structural and systemic challenges that act as barriers to disclosure and reporting for First Nations peoples who have experienced crime.
The report finds that repeated negative and unsafe experiences reinforce mistrust of police and mainstream service systems and create the sense for many Aboriginal communities that support is simply not available.
The report identifies four priority areas for reform:
- Disclosure and reporting
- Service access
- Court processes and
- Building workforce capacity
Elena Campbell, Associate Director of Research, Advocacy and Policy for CIJ and co-author of the report, said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are dramatically overrepresented at all stages of the criminal justice system, including as victims of crime.
"Many Aboriginal community members are unlikely to report an experience of crime to authorities given the ongoing impacts of colonisation and systemic discrimination," she said.
"Where the participants in our research had sought assistance, however, the research shows that short-term, inflexible or culturally unsafe service provision can leave people without much needed support to recover from harm."
Campbell explained that in contrast, a culturally safe and flexible service system which can offer "choice, self-determination and respond to an Aboriginal person's wider needs in a holistic way" can provide a much more effective and meaningful path to healing.
Antoinette Braybrook AM, CEO of Djirra, one of the research project partners, emphasised the value of the research that highlights Aboriginal people's direct experiences.
"This research confirms what Aboriginal people have long known - that we are overrepresented as victims of crime and yet rarely receive support for these experiences," she said.
"Research that features the voices of Aboriginal people, and particularly Aboriginal women's experiences of family violence, is long overdue and Government must now step up, listen and act."
