Talk:Indigenous Australians and crime

Choice of image

I think the idea of illustrating an article about "Indigenous Australians and crime" with a historical image of pretty much any Indigenous Australians - ones whom, to our knowledge, were not criminals or involved in crime - is a poor judgement and I am removing it. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Racist rant

This page is pure racist rant, by the same people who commited genocide against natives in Australia and all over the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.121.73.183 (talk) 17:45, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

What specifically would you change? The article seems to be pretty comprehensive and well-sourced, and there's nothing that really jumps out at me as objectionable. The responses section could definitely be expanded, however. IgnorantArmies (talk) 17:57, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Oct 2019 upgrade

I have done quite a big upgrade on this article just to bring it up to some basic standards, but my feeling is that the topic itself is rather too complex, and too much written about, to be adequately represented in a reasonably sized article. I'm sure it can be improved greatly with a bit more time and effort, but better done by someone who works in the field or with more familiarity with the literature than I have, so I'm leaving it now. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:01, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposed deletion

• Support deletion as proposed by Bacondrum. I did spend a fair bit of time trying to improve the article some time ago, but agree that the topic is basically racist, not to mention a magnet for POV pushers and ultimately pointless because it can never cover the complexity of the multitude of issues relating to the topic. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:26, 20 December 2019 (UTC) p.s. Will also need removal from the "Australian crime" template. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:29, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

• DePRODed I have dePRODed this, because it is reasonably well referenced and does (try?) to address an unequivicably notable issue, ie the over representation of people with first Australian heritage in our legal system. However, I do agree that it has some POV leanings and has an undertone of bias, but I suggest that this is not intentional. I would much rather see most of the content, definitely not all of it, properly merged into other articles. This collation of the "indigenous bad stuff" is not helpful nor particularly encyclopedic. So before it is deleted out right I think it should get a wider audience, ie at AfD, if Laterthanyouthink and Bacondrum think it needs it. Or, I would much prefer to see it "removed" by a series of bold upmerges to appropriate better context articles. I have removed what I consider to be an emotive and POV sentence from the lead. Many articles are "POV magnets". This is not a reason for deletion. If it becomes a problem then it can be variously edit protected. Similarly, complexity is not a reason for not addressing a subject. That is (one of the things) that encyclopedias are for. Aoziwe (talk) 13:36, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Hey thanks for your thoughts. I still think the articles premise is straight up racist. Some parts could be merged into crime in Australia, but I think an article like this focuses unduly on Aboriginal criminality - in an explicitly racist manner - giving the impression that Aboriginal people are somehow lesser people and that they possess an inherent criminality. Looking at the early versions of this article I believe it was created with the intent being to demonise Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples. I'll take to the AfD, cheers. Bacondrum (talk) 22:13, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Coming back to this with more time to re-read, I don't think it's in bad shape at the moment, from the point of NPOV. And I see that there is Race and crime in the United States (with a much more sophisticated analysis), Immigration and crime in Germany, Immigration and crime, etc. So perhaps we should live with this and try to subject it to continuous improvement. Page traffic is not high but it is something that people may look for. I don't think the topic is inherently racist; perhaps WP could help to educate some people who are. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:45, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Misleading introduction.

The initial two paragraphs of this article imply that the indigenous incarceration rate is somehow a by-product of systemic racism without any citation or statistics to back that claim.

Claims of police brutality are also unsubstantiated and in this case could be viewed as offensive. This should be removed unless there is data to support it.

The incarceration rate and proportion of prison population is a reflection of the same disproportional occurrence of criminal acts being committed within the indigenous community.

The violent crime section contains statistics that seem to directly conflict with the opening two paragraphs.

There needs to be mention and emphasis places on a few contributing factors:

1. Alcohol and substance abuse play a larger role than any "systemic" issues and this should be at least mentioned in the introduction. The rate of drug and alchohol abuse and dependency within the indigenous community is wildly disproportional to the rates found in the broader population, or indeed any other specific demographic within.

2. Most of the criminal offences occur in remote and isolated communities where both the purpertrator and victim come from an indigenous background. This goes a long way to explaining why both figures are disproportional to the broader population.

3. The high rate of domestic incidents occur in and around the home and both victim and perpetrator are commonly related or known to each other. Both points 1and 2 listed above also act as a key driver of this statistic (substance abuse combined with isolation).

If we want to actually help ease the pain and suffering our Aboriginal community experiences due to the high incarceration rate within their own community, we must keep the conversation honest and grounded in truth.

British colonisation and the policies that continued/continue to affect our indigenous population must also play a role here, but cannot be used as a crutch to avoid dealing with some of the more obvious and directly harmful issues at play.

If the perpetrator and victims are largely coming from the same communities, it has a compounding effect as criminal justice must also be served and witnesses interviewed, traumatising that group while leaving outsiders unaffected.

This in itself can lead to a feeling of resentment, isolation and persecution.

Combined with the very real remnants of systematic long term oppression, this feeds back into the feeling of hopelessness and leads to further substance abuse and offenses.

And so the cycle will continue. Ben Fullgrabe (talk) 22:13, 29 February 2020 (UTC)