Crime rates and justice innovations in the Torres Strait Islands

For decades, Australian criminologists have cited crime statistics to illustrate the extreme disadvantage Indigenous peoples in Australia experience in the criminal justice system. Official statistics often present a bleak picture of Australian Indigenous communities, presented as ‘problems’. However, broad-brush understandings of Indigenous Australians’ interactions with the criminal justice system, as well as sweeping policy responses, often fail to appreciate diversity across and between Australian Indigenous communities. This briefing paper draws on research carried out as part of a Criminology Research Grant through the Australian Institute of Criminology and points to some of the solutions these communities are developing to tackle the historical and contemporary injustices of colonisation and racism