Social Determinants of Justice
The Social Determinants of Justice Research Hub at 91色情片 builds on that conceptualises the social determinants of justice: the factors associated with a higher likelihood of initial and ongoing contact with the criminal justice system.
This research hub aims to further develop that work through systems-focused and community-led research and education that aims to address those determinants and reduce the criminalisation and incarceration of disadvantaged and targeted groups of people.
Australia's criminal justice system is far from just. While听听and governments have committed to听, the incarceration rates of certain groups of people remain shamefully high. These groups include听, those with听, and people experiencing听听补苍诲听. Australia's high and increasing rates of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people are particularly harmful and concerning.
The social determinants of justice are structural
The original research to identify the factors associated with people's initial and ongoing criminal justice involvement involved meta-analysis of studies of a听. The data comes from government agencies: NSW police, courts, corrections, and health and human services agencies such as housing and child protection. The dataset is longitudinal, meaning the contact people had with services and institutions is observable over time鈥攆rom engagement with child protection services and police, to admissions to hospital and time spent in custody.
Eight factors were identified as social determinants of justice, with analysis showing that your chance of ending up in prison is greatly increased by:
- having been in out-of-home care
- receiving a poor school education
- being Indigenous
- having early contact with police
- having unsupported mental health and cognitive disability
- problematic alcohol and other drug use
- experiencing homelessness or unstable housing
- coming from or living in a disadvantaged location.
The more of these factors experienced, the more likely people in the dataset were to be incarcerated and reincarcerated. They were often in custody on remand (not yet sentenced) and for minor offences, cycling in and out of the system over many years.
There are structural factors at play in people鈥檚 involvement in the criminal justice system. For example, a person with cognitive disability who grew up in a middle class family with access to early support is very unlikely to go to prison, even if they are involved in offending. They have greater access to social advantages than, say, an Aboriginal person with cognitive disability from a remote town that has many police officers but听.
Government administrative data highlights how many people end up in youth and adult detention after child protection, education, disability and health services听. Activists and advocates from racialised and disadvantaged communities have been speaking up about this for many years.听
Therefore the concept of the social determinants of justice was further developed to identify the 鈥causes of the causes鈥 of who goes to prison:
- entrenchment of poverty and unequal access to resources in families and neighbourhoods
- structural racism and discrimination, in particular experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and people with disability
- failure to adequately respond to the abuse, violence and trauma experienced by so many children and young people
- operation of the criminal legal system itself in the way that it is criminogenic; that is, it increases rather than reduces the likelihood of future incarceration.
The social determinants of justice show up in the听听of certain communities, lack of access to well-resourced听, not being granted听, and limited specialist听.
All this highlights that we need broader system and policy changes to reduce the unacceptable social and economic costs of incarceration.