Law, Justice, and Indigenous Intergenerational Trauma—A Genealogy

Abstract

Aboriginal Australians experience trauma that is linked to continuing colonising practices in the present, and which are also reproduced throughout the more than 230 years of colonisation. Intergeneration trauma intersects with the over-representation of Aboriginal people in the welfare and justice systems. This paper examines evidence of the relations between trauma and colonialising practices imposed on Indigenous peoples, as past and present conditions leading to intergenerational trauma. Historical and present-day conditions affecting Aboriginal children and families are shown to set in place the conditions producing trauma over time.

Patterns of alleged offending amongst Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal young people in the Northern Territory of Australia, 1997–2019

“…The proximal reasons for this large and increasing disparity, and how to reduce it, need to be considered in the context of the colonisation, dispossession and suppression that caused intergenerational and ongoing damage to Aboriginal people, families and communities and the resultant economic, social and institutional disadvantage in which many Aboriginal people, and Aboriginal society as a whole, remains (Atkinson, 2002; McCallum, 2022).…”