Taking the problem seriously? Sentencing Indigenous and non-Indigenous domestic violence offenders

Abstract

The 'problem' of Indigenous domestic violence has become increasingly dominant in populist and government discourse, with the criminal justice system (including the courts) being criticised for the possible lenient treatment of offenders. Using a population of cases sentenced in New South Wales from January 2009 to June 2012, this paper uses multivariate analyses to explore the intersection between Indigenous status, context of violence (domestic vs. nondomestic) and the imprisonment sentencing decision. Results suggest that when sentenced under comparable statistical circumstances, Indigenous domestic violence offenders are equally likely as those convicted of violent crimes outside of intimate/familial contexts to be sentenced to prison. In contrast, non-Indigenous domestic violence offenders are significantly less likely than those convicted of violent offences outside of intimate/familial relationships contexts to be sentenced to prison. Drawing on the focal concerns sentencing perspective, possible explanations for this finding are explored. The tension faced by the courts between the impact of colonialism on Indigenous offenders and their communities, the need to protect Indigenous victims of domestic violence and their communities, as well as overarching expectations around the punitive treatment of crimes of domestic violence are discussed.

Effect of Indigenous status on sentence outcomes for serious assault offences

“…The odds ratio associated with Indigenous status was found to be 1.37, meaning that all else being equal, the odds of an Indigenous offender receiving a prison sentence were 37% higher than that of a non-Indigenous offender. This finding echoes the results of a similar study carried out in the same year by Jeffries and Bond (2015). They found that the risk of imprisonment for Indigenous offenders was the same, regardless of whether they were convicted of a domestic violence or a non-domestic violence offence.…”

“…Marginal probabilities of offenders by Indigenous status accounting for interaction effects. in previous research between Snowball andWeatherburn (2006, 2007), on the one hand, and Jeffries and Bond (2015) and Donnelly and Poynton (2015), on the other. Our binomial GEE regression models showed that Indigenous status of the offender had a significant effect on the probability of receiving a prison sentence over a suspended sentence or supervised bond.…”

“…This highlights the importance of including comprehensive, sentence relevant controls in any analysis of the effect of race (or Indigenous status) on sentencing. The larger effect of Indigenous status on imprisonment risk found in the Donnelly and Poynton (2015) and Jeffries and Bond (2015) studies would appear to be due to their more limited controls. This said, it must be emphasised that the current study still finds a significant interaction between Indigenous status, offence type and penalty choice.…”

“…common assault). Jeffries and Bond (2015) endeavoured to mitigate this risk by including a measure of offence seriousness using the National Offence Index (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009), but it is doubtful that this strategy succeeded. For one thing, their sample consisted of all adult offenders convicted of a 'personal' offence.…”

“…The purpose of this study is to revisit the questions addressed by Donnelly and Poynton (2015) and Jeffries and Bond (2015) using (a) a more extensive set of controls and (b) assault offences matched in terms of seriousness. More specifically, in addition to the usual demographic and prior record controls, we include controls for drug and alcohol abuse, prior penalties (prior suspended sentence, prior prison sentence) and prior breach of an apprehended violence order.…”