News

AIC: New research explores risk factors for Indigenous arrest and imprisonment

Link to:
Trends & issues 694: Towards an understanding of Indigenous arrest
Research report 32: Towards a theory of Indigenous contact with the criminal justice system

The Australian Institute of Criminology’s Indigenous Justice Research Program has released two reports on Indigenous contact with the criminal justice system. The research was led by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales and used the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey to examine the factors that increase and decrease the risk of arrest.

Factors found to increase the risk of arrest among Indigenous Australians were illicit drug and alcohol use, high levels of psychological distress and being a member of the stolen generation. Protective factors included school completion, having a permanent home and having an above average income.
The strongest risk factor for Indigenous arrest was the use of illicit drugs and alcohol over the preceding 12 months, which increased the marginal risk of arrest by 14 percentage points.

The strongest protective factor was school completion, which reduced the risk of arrest by 7.9 percentage points.