scholarly journals ‘It’s a Gendered Issue, 100 Per Cent’: How Tough Bail Laws Entrench Gender and Racial Inequality and Social Disadvantage

Author(s):  
Emma K. Russell ◽  
Bree Carlton ◽  
Danielle Tyson

Women’s rates of remand, or pre-trial detention, have grown dramatically in Australia and the rates at which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are incarcerated without conviction are particularly high. However, there is little research examining bail and remand practices and their relationship to social inequalities. This article presents findings from research on the drivers behind women’s increasing rates of custodial remand in Victoria—a jurisdiction that has significantly restricted access to bail through legislative reforms. Drawing on data derived from interviews with criminal defence and duty lawyers, we outline how bail and remand practices systematically disadvantage women experiencing housing insecurity and domestic and family violence (DFV), increasing their risk of becoming trapped in longer-term cycles of incarceration. Our analysis reinforces the need to move away from ‘tough on crime’ approaches to bail. It also highlights unintended consequences of DFV reforms, including further marginalising and punishing criminalised women who are victim-survivors.

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332199983
Author(s):  
Barbara Pini ◽  
Laura Rodriguez Castro ◽  
Robyn Mayes

In reflecting on the last two decades of publications by Australian rural studies scholars in three major disciplinary journals, this article argues that the field of Australian rural sociology has failed to address racial inequality and class difference. While we note a burgeoning of feminist rural research challenging the historical emphasis on the white male farmer, this too has tended to occlude class and race, as is demonstrated in our analysis of the national ‘Invisible Farmer’ project. Accordingly, we point to a need to bring anti-racist work and scholarship to bear on our subdiscipline. In particular, we call for Australian rural studies scholars to engage with Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander scholarship to interrogate whiteness as a category of difference and to open a discussion about relinquishing settler power, including in the academy. We emphasise the need for actions to understand and challenge the continuing dominance and privilege of whiteness and the fundamentally classed colonial project in Australian rural studies.


Author(s):  
Megan Ferguson ◽  
Kerin O'Dea ◽  
Jon Altman ◽  
Marjory Moodie ◽  
Julie Brimblecombe

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote communities in Australia experience a disproportionate burden of diet-related chronic disease. This occurs in an environment where the cost of store-purchased food is high and cash incomes are low, factors that affect both food insecurity and health outcomes. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storeowners and the retailers who work with them implement local policies with the aim of improving food affordability and health outcomes. This paper describes health-promoting food pricing policies, their alignment with evidence, and the decision-making processes entailed in their development in community stores across very remote Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of retailers and health professionals identified through the snowball method, September 2015 to October 2016. Data were complemented through review of documents describing food pricing policies. A content analysis of the types and design of policies was undertaken, while the decision-making process was considered through a deductive, thematic analysis. Fifteen retailers and 32 health professionals providing services to stores participated. Subsidies and subsidy/price increase combinations dominated. Magnitude of price changes ranged from 5% to 25% on fruit, vegetables, bottled water, artificially sweetened and sugar sweetened carbonated beverages, and broadly used ‘healthy/essential’ and ‘unhealthy’ food classifications. Feasibility and sustainability were considered during policy development. Greater consideration of acceptability, importance, effectiveness and unintended consequences of policies guided by evidence were deemed important, as were increased involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storeowners and nutritionists in policy development. A range of locally developed health-promoting food pricing policies exist and partially align with research-evidence. The decision-making processes identified offer an opportunity to incorporate evidence, based on consideration of the local context.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amalie Dyda ◽  
Surendra Karki ◽  
Marlene Kong ◽  
Heather F Gidding ◽  
John M Kaldor ◽  
...  

Background: There is limited information on vaccination coverage and characteristics associated with vaccine uptake in Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander adults. We aimed to provide more current estimates of influenza vaccination coverage in Aboriginal adults. Methods: Self-reported vaccination status (n=559 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander participants, n=80,655 non-Indigenous participants) from the 45 and Up Study, a large cohort of adults aged 45 years or older, was used to compare influenza vaccination coverage in Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander adults with coverage in non-Indigenous adults. Results: Of Aboriginal and non-Indigenous respondents aged 49 to <65 years, age-standardised influenza coverage was respectively 45.2% (95% CI 39.5–50.9%) and 38.5%, (37.9–39.0%), p-value for heterogeneity=0.02. Coverage for Aboriginal and non-Indigenous respondents aged ≥65 years was respectively 67.3% (59.9–74.7%) and 72.6% (72.2–73.0%), p-heterogeneity=0.16. Among Aboriginal adults, coverage was higher in obese than in healthy weight participants (adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=2.38, 95%CI 1.44–3.94); in those aged <65 years with a medical risk factor than in those without medical risk factors (aOR=2.13, 1.37–3.30); and in those who rated their health as fair/poor compared to those who rated it excellent (aOR=2.57, 1.26–5.20). Similar associations were found among non-Indigenous adults. Conclusions: In this sample of adults ≥65 years, self-reported influenza vaccine coverage was not significantly different between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous adults whereas in those <65 years, coverage was higher among Aboriginal adults. Overall, coverage in the whole cohort was suboptimal. If these findings are replicated in other samples and in the Australian Immunisation Register, it suggests that measures to improve uptake, such as communication about the importance of influenza vaccine and more effective reminder systems, are needed among adults.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Troy Walker ◽  
Claire Palermo ◽  
Karen Klassen

BACKGROUND Social media may have a significant role in influencing the present and future health implications among Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, yet there has been no review of the role of social media in improving health. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine the extent of health initiatives using social media that aimed to improve the health of Australian Aboriginal communities. METHODS A scoping review was conducted by systematically searching databases CINAHL Plus; PubMed; Scopus; Web of Science, and Ovid MEDLINE in June 2017 using the terms and their synonyms “Aboriginal” and “Social media.” In addition, reference lists of included studies and the Indigenous HealthInfonet gray literature were searched. Key information about the social media intervention and its impacts on health were extracted and data synthesized using narrative summaries. RESULTS Five papers met inclusion criteria. All included studies were published in the past 5 years and involved urban, rural, and remote Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people aged 12-60 years. No studies reported objective impacts on health. Three papers found that social media provided greater space for sharing health messages in a 2-way exchange. The negative portrayal of Aboriginal people and negative health impacts of social media were described in 2 papers. CONCLUSIONS Social media may be a useful strategy to provide health messages and sharing of content among Aboriginal people, but objective impacts on health remain unknown. More research is necessary on social media as a way to connect, communicate, and improve Aboriginal health with particular emphasis on community control, self-empowerment, and decolonization.


1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-24

This article addresses Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health problems and critically investigates current government policies which are attempting to raise the health standards of these Indigenous people. Particular emphasis will be placed on the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, which, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics census in 1986, stood at just over 61,000 or 2.4 per cent of the State's population.


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