Tamara Tulich, Harry Blagg, Robyn Williams, Dorothy Badry, Michelle Stewart, Raewyn Mutch, and Suzie Edward May
Introduction
Aboriginal youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are worryingly overrepresented in the criminal justice system in Australia, mirroring the experience in other settler states including Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. FASD results from exposure to alcohol in utero, leading to cognitive, social, and behavioural difficulties, including difficulties with language, memory, impulse control, and linking actions to consequences (Douglas, 2010). American research suggests that over half of persons with FASD will interact with the criminal justice system: around 60% will be arrested, charged, or convicted of a criminal offence, and about half will have spent time in juvenile detention, prison, inpatient treatment, or mental health detention (Streissguth, Barr, Kogan & Bookstein, 1997; Streissguth, Bookstein & Barr, 2004). Canadian research indicates that young people with FASD are 19 times more likely to be arrested than their peers (Popova, Lange, Bekmuradov, Mihic & Rehm, 2011). A recent study undertaken in Western Australiaâs juvenile detention centre found that 36 out of 100 youth detainees had FASD, with 34 of the 36 identifying as Aboriginal. This is âthe highest reported prevalence of FASD in a youth setting worldwideâ (Bower et al., 2018, p. 7). Repeated contact with the criminal justice system compounds the condition and causes contributory outcomes, such as psychiatric disorders (OâMalley, 2007), reinforcing the vulnerability of a person with FASD to contact with the criminal justice system (as victims and offenders) (Blagg & Tulich, 2018; Blagg, Tulich & Bush, 2016, 2017; Koren, 2004). At the same time, there is a growing collection of parliamentary reports, case law, and commentary highlighting the inadequate accommodation of FASD-associated impairments within the criminal justice system in Australia, particularly for Aboriginal youth.
The aim of this book is to provide a multidisciplinary and cross-jurisdictional analysis of issues surrounding FASD and the criminal justice system, and its impact on Aboriginal children, young people, and their families. It is largely based on research in Australia and Canada; however, it also makes reference to the experience in the USA and New Zealand, especially the latter, due to its commitment to legislative reform and Indigenous empowerment. One of the key themes through the text is that, far from providing solutions to FASD, the mainstream criminal justice system increases the likelihood of adverse outcomes for children with FASD and their families. Over the last few decades youth justice systems in many Western societies have been increasingly modelled on the adult criminal justice system, as part of a US-initiated âpunitive turnâ in sentencing (Simon, 2007). There is a much greater focus than hitherto on risk management, punishment, and offender accountability, eclipsing the previous interest in child welfare and development. What John Muncie (2008) calls a populist âresurgent authoritarianismâ in criminal justice policy, is dissolving the difference between the adult and the youth justice systems in some jurisdictions. However, this is not a uniform process, and not every element of the US punitive populist agenda has been copied by other jurisdictions. New Zealand, in particular, has maintained a commitment to a child-centred approach, coupled with a commitment to involving family (whÄnau) in decision making at every stage of contact with the criminal justice system. There are also differences in the approach taken in different Australian states, and territories in Canada, regarding youth justice. In Australia, the state of Victoria has had a relatively low rate of imprisonment for young people, while the Northern Territory and Western Australia have relatively high rates of detention: they also have the highest rate of Indigenous youth incarceration in Australia. This is not surprising since issues of race have fuelled the punitive turn in sentencing according to criminologists (Cunneen 2006, 2018; Simon, 2007; Wacquant 2010, 2014).
The over-representation of Indigenous youth with FASD in the justice systems in settler states is about intersecting forms of oppression that are founded in, and sustained by, settler colonialism. High rates of FASD in Aboriginal communities in Australia are the consequence of unhealed intergenerational and transgenerational trauma linked to colonial violence and dispossession and its pervasive impact on social, emotional, and cultural well-being of individuals, families, and communities (Blagg & Tulich, 2018; Blagg et al., 2016, 2017; Dudgeon, Milroy & Walker, 2014; Williams, 2018). Intergenerational and transgenerational trauma convey the extent to which the pain and trauma associated with colonial dispossession and colonial practices are transmitted from one generation to the next generation and across generations (Atkinson, Nelson, Brooks, Atkinson & Ryan, 2014). The âfounding violenceâ of colonisation has cascaded through time leaving destruction in its wake, and in the words of Professor Judy Atkinson, of the Jiman and Bundjalung peoples, âtrauma trailsâ that ârun across country and generationsâ (Atkinson, 2002, p. 88). The transgenerational impacts of colonisation and colonial trauma were amplified when generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were stolen from their parents and assimilated into statutory systems (Atkinson, 2002). The colonial-trauma is iterative across statutory systems and the impacts are intergenerational and intracellular.
Intergenerational and transgenerational trauma involve many coping mechanisms including alcohol consumption. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart (2011) (Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota) discusses the cumulative impacts of trauma across the life of an individual and across generations, which can result in self-medicating with substances to avoid these painful memories or experiences. Emily Carter (2017, Weston & Thomas, 2018, p. 4), a Gooniyandi Kija woman from the central Kimberley, and CEO of Marninwarntikura Womenâs Resource Centre in Fitzroy Crossing, explains:
We canât understand anything about FASD without understanding trauma. Many in the Fitzroy Valley drink so they donât have to feel the overwhelming emotions triggered by trauma. Instead of judging people for the outcome of their actions we must start asking what has happened. As soon as we look beyond the judgement, we can start changing the outcome and create better futures.
This requires us to decolonise FASD as a disability: to recognise the connection between FASD and inherited disparity as a consequence of colonisation, and the role of colonisation in the production of impairment and disability (Chisholm, Tulich & Blagg, 2017; Grech & Soldatic, 2015; Hollingsworth, 2013; Jaffee, 2016; Meekosha, 2011; Soldatic, 2013, 2015). Disability compounds the disparities confronting Indigenous populations, and racism further contributes to the disproportionate social, health, and economic disadvantages (Green et al., 2018; see also Macedo, Smithers, Roberts, Paradies & Jamieson, 2019). This continues to be reflected in the higher prevalence rate of disability amongst Indigenous populations than the settler mainstream in Australia, Canada, and the United States (Fitts & Soldatic, 2020), and the higher prevalence rate of First Nations peoples with disability in the criminal justice systems in settler states (Australian Law Reform Commission [ALRC], 2018; Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2018). The over-representation of impairment amongst Aboriginal peoples in Australian is both a product of, and continuously produced by, the settler state. Soldatic (2015, p. 64) explains:
It has been suggested that the over-representation of impairment is a reflection of Aboriginal Australiansâ dispossession, or to use a term from Deborah Rose (2006), a âdouble deathâ â the interstice of white-settler disabling societies and colonizing violence and dispossession â producing impairment and disablement.
Increasingly Indigenous peoples in settler colonial societies maintain that meaningful change requires a process of decolonisation, rather than the reform, of the criminal justice process (Agozino, 2004; Anthony, 2013; Cunneen & Tauri, 2017, 2019; Jackson, 1987; Park, 2015; Tauri, 2016a, b). In opposition to the âcorrectionalisationâ of youth justice, we advocate for an approach that recognises the unique needs of children and young people, and strengths of First Nations communities, and that is situated in a decolonising perspective. Dr Ambelin Kwaymullina (2020, pp. 62â63), of the Palyku people of the Pilbara region in Western Australia, explains a strengths-based approach:
A strengths-based approach
recognises
the great gifts
resilience
knowledges
of Indigenous peoples
And seeks to build upon
celebrate
utilise
these strengths
A strengths-based approach
recognises
that the cause of Indigenous disadvantage
is dispossession
and all that was done
to achieve it
sustain it
justify it
We are not a problem to be solved
we are partners on pathways
to all the knowledges
inventions
joys
wonders
that will come out of respectful relationships
We argue for a strategic framework for the management of FASD that is multidisciplinary and community-focussed, prioritising diversion from the criminal justice system into community-owned networks of care and support. It is not enough to develop multidisciplinary approaches and multi-disciplinary teamwork if Indigenous knowledges are excluded from the process. Initiatives on a local level must be initiated from the bottom up, not the top down, be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and centre Aboriginal and Torres Strai...