Why do some aboriginal communities have lower crime rates than others? A Pilot Study.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 August 2010
• Author: McCausland, Ruth

Crime data collated by the New South Wales (NSW) Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) indicates that there is considerable variation in rates of Indigenous (1) offending from one area to another in NSW, including in areas that are comparable in terms of Indigenous population. However, despite research findings that raise the importance of community context in relation to the offending of Indigenous individuals, there has been little investigation of the relationship between the dynamics of Indigenous communities and crime rates. In particular, there is a dearth of research that seeks to better understand the factors that may render Indigenous communities less prone to crime. This article outlines the findings of a pilot study undertaken by a research team from Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney, with support from BOCSAR. The pilot study sought to better understand the factors that contribute to variations in rates of Indigenous offending by conducting qualitative research in two communities with significant Aboriginal populations--Wilcannia and Menindee--that are demographically and geographically comparable but with contrasting crime rates.

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It is commonplace to observe that Indigenous Australians are significantly over-represented at all stages of the criminal justice system, as both victims and offenders (Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision [SCRGSP], 2009, 2.17, 4.139ff). Indeed, since Indigenous overrepresentation first came to prominence with the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, rates have increased, despite various Commonwealth and NSW Government legislative and policy measures. (2) In NSW, the rate of Indigenous imprisonment is 12.5 times that of non-Indigenous people (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2008a), having increased by 21% since 2005 (ABS, 2005). Overrepresentation by Indigenous people occurs in particular for violent offences, public order offences and 'justice-related' matters such as breaches of existing court orders (Cunneen, 2007, pp. 145-146).

Nonetheless, Indigenous communities are not homogenous and there is considerable variation in rates of offending and victimisation in Indigenous communities across NSW and Australia (Cunneen, 2007, pp. 146-47). With this variation as its genesis, this article outlines a pilot study undertaken by Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney, with support from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR).The study sought to explore the particular social, economic and cultural circumstances of two communities in NSW with significant Aboriginal populations but markedly different rates of crime, and to investigate factors that may be contributing to the contrasting rates of crime in these communities.

There is a growing body of research that seeks to identify factors that increase the risk of, or are associated with, individual Indigenous offenders' involvement in crime. Weatherburn et al. (2006) drew on data from the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) to examine economic and social factors that underpin Indigenous contact with the criminal justice system. Their findings supported previous research identifying risk factors including poor school performance and poor school retention, child neglect and abuse, family disruption and dissolution, unemployment, poverty and low socioeconomic status, overcrowding, living in a crime-prone neighbourhood, lack of social support and involvement, social stress and, most importantly, drug and alcohol abuse (Weatherburn et al., 2006).

By contrast, there has been little research focus to date on the broader dynamics and characteristics of Indigenous communities and their relationship to rates of crime. Existing research on variations in crime rates in NSW rural communities, such as that undertaken by Jobes et al. (2004, 2005) and Donnermeyer et al. (2007) illustrate a complex interaction of factors. Building on their 2004 research across six clusters of NSW rural communities that concluded social factors were more important to crime rates than population size or economic factors, Jobes et al. (2005) studied two NSW towns with Aboriginal populations of approximately 6% with significantly different crime rates to similarly conclude that social cohesion and social integration, rather than Aboriginality per se, explained the levels of crime and other social problems. However, a third study of four communities (the two with above-average Aboriginal populations from the 2005 study and two communities with average Aboriginal populations and differing crime rates) concluded that social cohesion was a greater predictor of low crime rates in the communities with lower Aboriginal populations than the other two towns where social and economic inequality were more significant. Such research supports undertaking further qualitative community-level research to illuminate statistical data (see for example, Barclay et al, 2007; Morgan et al., 1999; Jobes et al., 2000; Lawrence, 2007).

Aim and Methodology

The aim of the study was to better understand factors that contribute to significant variations in rates of Indigenous offending in different areas in NSW by conducting qualitative research in two communities with large Aboriginal populations that are demographically and geographically comparable, but with contrasting crime rates. The research team was particularly interested in whether there may be identifiable characteristics or strategies that may have a positive impact on crime rates in Indigenous communities. Steps undertaken included:

* a survey of available statistical, demographic and policy data that identified Wilcannia and Menindee in western NSW as appropriate case study communities;

* a literature review of relevant studies regarding crime rates and Aboriginal communities;

* development of a theoretical framework and methodology for the collection and analysis of data;

* consultation with key Aboriginal community and organisational representatives;

* field work in the selected communities, primarily conducting in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews with key informants, selected on the basis of their organisational or representative role;

* transcribing and coding of field work data to identify predominant themes and narratives;

* analysis and communication of findings, including drafting of a community report for distribution to interviewees.

A steering committee of eminent individuals with extensive Indigenous, criminology, legal, research and policy experience was established to inform the pilot study.

The study relied on data using postcode boundaries. In seeking to explore the dynamics of the groups within those boundaries, while being mindful of problems in defining Indigenous 'community', we were guided by the definition of an Indigenous community developed by the Indigenous Community Governance Project at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. This definition describes community as a network of people and organisations linked together by a web of personal relationships, cultural and political connections and identities, networks of support, traditions and institutions, shared socioeconomic conditions or common understandings and interests (Hunt & Smith, 2006).

In identifying a suitable framework for the study, the research team was aware of the questionable tendency of western criminology to simply extend existing conceptual categories to accommodate Aboriginal issues (Blagg, in Anthony & Cunneen, 2008, p. 131). In particular, Blagg questions the applicability of criminological theories that predominantly emerge from large cities in the United States essentially shaped by circumstances that are the antithesis of those experienced by Indigenous peoples. That is, the immigrant experience of diaspora and adaption: learning new languages, cultures, values and political processes, versus withstanding the imposition of foreign laws, institutions, peoples, economies and beliefs, while maintaining Aboriginality and distinct identity in their own country (Blagg, in Anthony & Cunneen, 2008, pp. 133-34).

The study drew on social disorganisation theory to inform the interview approach and analysis of the data as the most common theoretical framework employed by criminologists conducting research in relation to rural or regional communities (Donnermeyer, 2007, p. 18). Concepts of social disorganisation have been described as aptly applying to Indigenous communities in terms of the breakdown of Indigenous informal social controls as a result of colonisation and dispossession (Snowball & Weatherburn, 2008). However, given the trial nature of the study and suggested limitations, the research team sought to draw on the concepts embedded in social disorganisation theory while being open to alternative theoretical explanations or findings that may not support any existing criminological or other theory.

In essence, social disorganisation theory emphasises the dual and interrelated impacts of a community's ability to realise common goals on the one hand and to maintain effective controls on crime on the other (Carcarch & Huntley, 2002, p. 1). Central to the theory is the assumption that crime is based on a lack of shared values and beliefs among members of a community and an inability to solve common problems (Bursik & Gransmick, 1999 cited in Donnermeyer, 2007, p. 18; Sampson & Groves, 1989, cited in Carcach and Huntley, 2002, p. 1). Elements of social disorganisation that disrupt the informal social ties, internal cohesion and density of acquaintanceship that are posited by the theory to control criminal behaviour include residential instability/high population turnover, racial/ethnic heterogeneity, family disruption, low economic status (poverty, unemployment) and population (size...