Why We Don’t See Race: How Australia Has Overlooked Race as an Influence on Miscarriages of Justice

Abstract

While criminal justice systems are increasingly prepared to identify and overturn wrongful convictions, the focus of limiting errors has centered upon commonly accepted “causal factors” of wrongful conviction. Importantly, there has been limited work that has explored the question of who is most vulnerable to fall victim to this error. We explore three landmark case studies highlighting wrongful convictions in Australia where race, racialized policing, or racism were crucial yet unresolved issues leading to an erroneous conviction. These cases and the absence of resolutions of these racialized issues in these convictions typify the inadequacies of Australian approaches to wrongful conviction. We argue that to achieve justice in Australia we must not be limited to the causal factors that have come to define American innocence and should support greater acknowledgment of how race and ethnicity influence wrongful conviction.

Wrongful Convictions and Erroneous Acquittals: Applying Packer’s Model to Examine Public Perceptions of Judicial Errors in Australia

“…Despite this attitudinal trend, our findings suggest that overall, the Australian public is concerned with wrongful convictions, which may be attributable to context-specific events. For example, while scant research exists that examines the prevalence of wrongful convictions in Australia (see e.g., Dioso-Villa, 2015; Stratton & Sigamoney, 2020; Weathered, 2007), several high-profile cases of wrongful convictions in Australia (e.g., the Lindy Chamberlain case; the Andrew Mallard case) may have penetrated public consciousness regarding the prevalence and implications of judicial errors. In a similar way, the Black Lives Movement in the US, which has implications for ethnic and racial minority groups in Australia, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, has spotlighted systemic racism and inequality in the criminal justice system.…”

“…This item was included as a proxy measure of due process in the Australian context. Historically discriminatory treatment against Australian Aboriginal people, in addition to disproportionately higher arrest and imprisonment rates affecting this population (Hutchings, 2021), suggests that Australian Aboriginal people are treated unfairly compared to other Australians (Dioso-Villa, 2015; Stratton & Sigamoney, 2020). As such, stronger beliefs that Aboriginal people are treated equally to other Australians may reflect respondents’ preferences for fair and just treatment, particularly amongst a population that has been subject to unjust judicial procedures (see Table 1).…”