scholarly journals Responding to Harm: The Challenge of Children’s Perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-108
Author(s):  
Kevin Haines ◽  
Anthony Charles
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Children’S Perspectives ◽  
Alternative Discourse ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Children’S Views

This article draws upon research undertaken in South Wales to understand children’s views concerning what it means to be a ‘victim’ of crime and their experiences, in that context, of engaging with the criminal justice system. Significantly, and moving beyond traditional policy and service provision concerns, child participants argued passionately that not only did adults fail to provide them with appropriate advice and support, but that their understandings of victimhood were inaccurate. Rather, children articulated an almost zemiological understanding of ‘harm’ which was the basis for an alternative way of understanding what it was to be a ‘victim’. Furthermore, children suggested that they were not taken seriously by an adult-led criminal justice system and that the operation of that system did not address their needs. Reflections are offered in this article concerning children’s views, and the profound implications that their alternative discourse pose for criminal justice policymakers and practitioners.

scholarly journals Imposed Stories: Prisoner Self-narratives in the Criminal Justice System in New South Wales, Australia

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggie Hall ◽  
Kate Rossmanith
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
South Wales

This article examines the ways in which offenders are required to provide very particular accounts of themselves and to self-narrate in confined ways. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in the New South Wales justice system, it explores how the stories that offenders are made to accept and tell about themselves often bear little relationship to their own reflections. It analyses how, despite the expectations of judges and prison authorities, these self-narratives are not products of an offender’s soul-searching concerning his past actions and experience; rather they are products of an official legal narrative being imposed on an offender whose capacity to own and enact such a narrative is already seriously compromised.

Care-criminalisation: The involvement of children in out-of-home care in the New South Wales criminal justice system

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 412-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kath McFarlane
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Home Care ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Out Of Home Care ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Children's Court ◽  
Children’S Court

This article discusses the involvement in the New South Wales criminal justice system of a cohort of children in out-of-home care. The paper reports the findings of a four-year research project that investigated the relationship between the child welfare and justice systems as experienced by a cohort of children in the New South Wales Children’s Court criminal jurisdiction. Analysis of 160 case files identified that children in out-of-home care appeared before the Children’s Court on criminal charges at disproportionate rates compared to children who were not in out-of-home care. The out-of-home care cohort had a different and negative experience of the justice system, entering it at a significantly younger age and being more likely to experience custodial remand, than children who had not been in out-of-home care. While both cohorts shared many of the risk factors common to young offenders appearing before the Children’s Court, the out-of-home care cohort experienced significant additional disadvantage within the care environment (‘care-criminalisation’), such that living arrangements designed to protect them from harm instead created the environment for offending. The paper concludes by arguing that a paucity of research exists regarding the drivers and dynamics of care-criminalisation and that more research is needed to explore the criminogenic impacts of a childhood spent in out-of-home care.

The Prosecution of Child Sexual Assault: A Survey of NSW DPP Solicitors

1995 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Cashmor
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Full Advantage ◽  
Justice System ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Child Witnesses ◽  
Child Sexual Assault ◽  
South Wales

Over the last decade, there has been a number of changes in the law and in courtroom procedures in relation to the prosecution of child sexual assault. These changes were intended to ease the restrictions on the admission of children's evidence and to make the experience of testifying less stressful for child witnesses. Court statistics on the outcome of child sexual assault prosecutions and the results of a survey by the NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of prosecuted cases of child sexual assault in New South Wales were examined to throw some light on the way such prosecutions and the child witnesses involved were dealt with in the criminal justice system. One of the major concerns was that while some reforms have allowed more and younger children to give evidence, full advantage has not been taken of other reforms to ease children's experience at court.

scholarly journals Police and Vulnerability in Bail Decisions

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Hughes ◽  
Emma Colvin ◽  
Isabelle Bartkowiak-Théron
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
New South ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Vulnerable People

Since bail legislation was enacted in the 1970s, Australia has experienced a continual increase in the number of prisoners on remand. Amendments to bail legislation and police discretion have been shown to contribute to this increase. Further, an accused’s vulnerability affects whether they are granted or denied bail, with vulnerable people being more likely to be denied bail. Vulnerability in the criminal justice system refers to factors such as race, age, sex and socioeconomic status. Many vulnerable people have multiple intersecting vulnerabilities, which further compounds their contact with the justice system. This study employed a qualitative content analysis of bail legislation for the Australian states of New South Wales (NSW), Tasmania, and Victoria, along with key correlating second reading speeches. The aim was to better understand the way in which bail decision-makers, such as police, consider vulnerability when making decisions about bail, in particular, if and how they are legislated to consider factors relating to vulnerability. The research found that only police in NSW and Victoria were required to consider an accused’s vulnerability explicitly under the law. Although legislation may cater for varying vulnerabilities, intersecting vulnerabilities are not considered.

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