Sentencing Indigenous Offenders in Canada, Australia and New Zealand: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

This chapter explores how institutional inter-generational trauma is perpetuated by criminal justice interventions into the lives of Indigenous women. We illustrate how past and present colonial policies and practices have shaped Indigenous women's lives and resulted in disproportionate incarceration across welfare and penal domains. The chapter then examines the ways in which the criminal justice system characterises trauma to problematise and pathologise Indigenous women. It calls for a paradigm shift from prisons to healing centres for Indigenous women through illustrations of healing, well-being and self-determination models embedded in Indigenous women's organisations and services.