5Th Annual Australian & New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference
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5TH ANNUAL AUSTRALIAN and NEW ZEALAND CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS July 7 and 8, 2011 James Cook University Cairns Campus Publishing Information Title - Proceedings of the 5th Annual Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference Editor(s) - Garry Coventry and Mandy Shircore Conference Name – 5TH Annual Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference Conference Date - July 7 and 8, 2011 Conference Location – Rydges Esplanade Resort, Cairns North Queensland Conference Website Address - Publisher and Place of Publication – James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland Year of Publication – 2012 ISBN - 978-0-9808572-4-5 Copyright Statement Authors who submit to this conference agree to the following terms: a) Authors retain copyright over their work, while allowing the conference to place this work under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to freely access, use, and share the work, with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and its initial presentation at this conference. b) Authors are able to waive the terms of the Creative Commons license and enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution and subsequent publication of this work (e.g., publish a revised version in a journal, post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial presentation at this conference. c) In addition, authors are encouraged to post and share their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) at any point before and after the conference. Peer Review The peer review process for the papers submitted to these proceedings was independent to the author, the editorial committee of the conference proceedings and the conference organizing committee. All papers submitted and published in these proceedings are peer reviewed. 5th ANNUAL AUSTRALIAN and NEW ZEALAND CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS July 7 and 8, 2011 James Cook University Cairns Campus Sponsorship and support for the 5th Annual ANZCCC was generously provided by the Cairns Institute and the School of Arts and Social Sciences at James Cook University. Our thanks go to these important ‘arms’ of the University for both their funding and staff time contributions to enable JCU to continue the successful hosting of the critical criminology conference, for the first time out of Sydney or Melbourne. We trust that JCU has set a precedent for other universities and organisations to host future annual conferences beyond our two major east coast cities. The 2011 conference maintained the ANZ Critical Criminology branch’s tradition of providing scholars, whether they were academics, practitioners or students, with opportunities to present and engage with critical criminological theoretical perspectives, research approaches and social/criminal justice system policies. It was a lively two days of interactive engagement for conference attendees. The warm winter tropical Australia weather was a bonus. 2011 conference proceedings are available online through The Sydney eScholarship Repository. To view the Table of Contents, paper abstracts and links to each refereed conference paper click here. Also available are abstracts of the presentations given by the three keynote speakers at the conference: Professor James Austin, JFA Institute, Washington D.C., Professor Sharon Pickering, Monash University, Melbourne and Professor John Braithwaite, Australian National University, Canberra. The abstracts of these keynote addresses are included in the conference program. Our thanks are extended to all paper contributors, those that refereed papers and provided comments and to Kylie Wilson for her efforts in bringing this collection of papers to its final closure for publication. Finally, we once again thank the contributions of the Cairns Institute and School of Arts and Social Sciences staff for ensuring a most successful conference. Also, we wish the University of Tasmania good fortune in its hosting of the 6th Annual Conference. Garry Coventry and Mandy Shircore (both of James Cook University) Editors and Convenors of the 2011 ANZCC Conference April, 2012 ANZCCC: The Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference 2011, Proceedings Title: Contemporary Penality in the Shadow of Colonial Patriarchy Author/s: Eileen Baldry, The University of New South Wales & Chris Cunneen, James Cook University) Abstract: Imprisonment in Australia has been a growing industry and large numbers of vulnerable people find themselves in a state of serial incarceration. Women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in particular have experienced rapidly expanding imprisonment rates over recent decades. Our argument is this article is relatively straightforward: to understand contemporary penal culture and in particular its severity and excess in relation to Indigenous people and women, we need to draw upon an understanding of the dynamics of colonial patriarchy. Although at a micro level, specific legislation and policy changes have negatively impacted on the imprisonment of vulnerable groups, it is within a broader context of the strategies and techniques of colonial patriarchy that we can understand why it is that particular social groups appear to become the targets of penal excess. Title: ‘Minutes of Evidence’: Raising awareness of structural injustice and justice Author/s: Jennifer Balint, Julie Evans & Nesam McMillan, The University of Melbourne Abstract: In 1881 a Victorian government colonial inquiry was established to inquire into Coranderrk, an Aboriginal reserve near Healesville. Lasting 4 months, the Commission of Inquiry was to determine the fate of the Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve and its inhabitants. The Inquiry was the result of a long campaign, including walking to Melbourne to petition Parliament, by the Aboriginal residents to stay on Coranderrk, in the face of the push by the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines to close the Reserve. In the past year, a verbatim theatre performance, Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country, based on the original records of this Inquiry, has been developed and performed. Developed in conjunction with Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Company, La Mama Theatre, and the Koori Heritage Trust, together with researchers within and outside the University of Melbourne, it is aimed at promoting new ways of publicly engaging with current and past structural injustice faced by Indigenous Australians, as well as locating this historical injustice, and the official response to it, internationally within a broader ‘transitional justice’ framework. Structural injustice is evident in the socio-economic gulf that continues to exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Australia, and in particular the disproportionately high incarceration rate of Indigenous men, women and young people (Blagg 2008; Cunneen 2005). Yet, despite their significance, issues of structural injustice have not been adequately or successfully addressed in Australia or in the broader field of transitional justice. Thus, this paper reflects on the role of the Coranderrk performances so far in finding new ways of publicly engaging with structural injustice and creating opportunities for community-wide conversations about what structural justice might look like in Australia and elsewhere. Title: Sentencing Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Women in Western Australia’s Higher Courts: A Summary of the Main Findings of a Narrative Study Author/s: Christine E.W. Bond & Samantha Jeffries, Queensland University of Technology Abstract: This paper presents the main findings of a narrative examination of higher court sentencing remarks to explore the relationship between Indigeneity and sentencing for female defendants in Western Australia. Using the theoretical framework of focal concerns, we found that key differences in the construction of blameworthiness and risk between the sentencing stories for Indigenous and non-Indigenous female offenders, through the identification of issues such as mental health, substance abuse, familial trauma and community ties. Further, in the sentencing narratives, Indigenous women were viewed differently in terms of social costs of imprisonment. Title: A Time to be Heard: Sudanese Australian Voices about Criminal and Social Justice Matters Author/s: Glenn Dawes & Garry Coventry, James Cook University Abstract: At the 2006 ANZ Criminology Conference, we challenged the pernicious claims of a few academics and others who hawked outrageous, unsubstantiated pronouncements about African refugees being a major crime and reintegration problem for settlement into Australia. The problem was collapsed into the ‘other’: characteristics of those that separate ‘them’ from ‘us’. Then, we were most concerned about the ‘deafening silence’, absent from critical criminology and other social science disciplines, which did not challenge such claims. To be fair, it was not until 2007 that key Commonwealth Government figures entered the fray and some critical criminology articles began to appear. Since, we have come to understand the difficulties in clearly establishing the boundaries and measurement of the contours of race/hate crime in Australia and, therefore, for critical criminology. But, these difficulties in assessing and possibly counting such incidents do not discount that these kinds of incidents do occur. The recent case under the Racial Discrimination Act , brought against