Indigenous victims of violent crime

1
Indigenous victims of violent crime

• Lucy Snowball and Don Weatherburn
• NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research

2
Structure of presentation

• The problem of Indigenous violence
• Theories of Indigenous violence
• Aims and methods of the present study
• Bi-variate results
• Multivariate results
• Conclusions and policy implications

3
Background

• In 2002, 25 of Australias Indigenous population
  experienced some sort of violent assault in the
  preceding 12 months
• This is double the rate for Indigenous
  Australians back in 1994
• Also much higher than the recorded rate for the
  population as a whole

4
Relative rates of violent offending in NSWATSI v
general population
Source NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and
Research
5
Theories of Indigenous violence

• Cultural theory
• Sutton 2001 Contemporary Indigenous violence
  largely reflective of traditional Indigenous
  cultural values
• Anomie theory
• Reser (1990), Hunter (1993), Langton (1989)
  Dispossession, cultural exclusion cause loss of
  self-esteem and feelings of powerlessness,
  particularly among Indigenous men

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Theories of Indigenous violence (cont.)

• Social disorganisation theory
• RCIADIC (1991), Memmot et al. (2001)
  Dispossession, forced removals, discrimination,
  undermine traditional Indigenous informal social
  controls (i.e. family, kinship networks)
• Social deprivation theory
• Devery (1999), Walker and McDonald (1995), Gale
  (1990) Indigenous violence a reflection of
  Indigenous economic and social disadvantage
• Lifestyle/routine activity theory
• Pearson (2001) Hughes and Warin (2005)
  Indigenous violence caused by alcohol abuse and
  passive welfare dependence

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Past research

• There is some evidence to support most of these
  theories
• The risk of violent assault/victimisation is
  higher for those who
• Are poor or unemployed I
• Have been exposed to social stress
• Live in a crowded household
• Have been removed or had relatives removed from
  their family
• Have a disability or long-term health condition
• Are high risk alcohol consumers
• Live with other householders who have been
  arrested

Sources Hunter (2001) Al-Yarman et al. (2006)
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However..

• Hunter (2001)
• Was reliant on the NATSIS, which had few relevant
  predictor variables and
• No direct measure of violent victimisation
• Al-Yarman, Van Doeland Wallis (2006)
• Used the NATSISS but only looked at limited
  number of predictor variables and
• Only carried out bi-variate analyses

9
Aims of the present study

• To assess the relative importance of variables
  drawn from
• Cultural theory
• Social disorganisation theory
• Social deprivation theory
• Lifestyle/routine activity theory
• As predictors of violent victimisation
• Anomie theory excluded because no relevant
  variables except gender of victim

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Data Source

• 2002 NATSISS
• Representative sample survey of 9,359 Indigenous
  persons aged ? 15 from 5,887 households across
  Australia in 2002-2003
• Eighty per cent fully answered the questionnaire
  and another 14 per cent partially answered it

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Research strategy

• Use the 2002 NATSISS to construct measures of
• Strength of traditional social norms
• Social disorganisation
• Economic and social disadvantage
• Lifestyle/routine activity theory
• Build a logistic regression model using these
  measures to see which exert the strongest
  independent effects on risk of violent
  victimisation

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Measures of key constructs

• Adherence to traditional culture
• Gender, whether respondent identifies with a
  clan, tribal or language group or speaks an
  Indigenous language, difficulties speaking
  English, whether the respondent lives on
  homelands, location.
• Social disorganisation
• lone parent, high mobility, experience of stolen
  generation, level of involvement in social
  activity
• Economic and social disadvantage
• Unemployment, financial stress in previous 12
  months, social stress, early school leaving,
  household crowding, number of dependent children,
  first charged as a child
• Situational factors
• Neighbourhood or community problems, abuse of
  drugs, high risk alcohol use, physical or
  intellectual disability, access to a motor
  vehicle, residence with a person who has been
  formally charged.
• Other controls
• age

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Bivariate resultsCultural theory
14
Bivariate results Social disorganisation theory
15
Bivariate results Social deprivation theory
Not significant at 5
16
Bivariate resultsLifestyle/routine activity
theory
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SummaryAll factors significant except

• Gender
• Location
• Measures of Indigenous culture
• Level of education
• Access to a motor vehicle
• Number of dependents

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Results regression analysis
19
Results marginal effects
20
Results Compounding effect of risk factors
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Conclusions

• Strong support for lifestyle/routine activity
  theory
• Moderate support for social disorganisation/social
  deprivation theory
• No support for cultural theory
• Need an integrated theory of Indigenous violence

22
Caveats

• Cross sectional study (difficult to infer
  causation from correlation)
• I D variables refer to different time periods
  (must assume present conditions existed in the
  past)
• No measures of some key variables (lack of
  self-esteem, depression, cultural norms etc)
• No substance abuse data for remote areas (may
  have weakened our measure of its effects)

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Policy implications

• Policy to reduce Indigenous violence should be
  multifactorial
• Particular emphasis needs to be given to
  strategies that reduce Indigenous alcohol
  consumption (e.g. restrictions on availability,
  volumetric taxation)
• Also need to give attention to measures that
  reduce social stress and improve economic and
  social outcomes (e.g. CDEP employment, funding
  for Indigenous education)