Table of contentsIntroductionColonialismAustralian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peopleAustralian colonizationCriminal justiceRoyal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in CustodyAboriginal overrepresentation todayCanadaTheoriesNative Americans: Native Americans and Alaska NativesIrish UnrestExplanations/Future PerspectivesBlacks in AmericaPost WWIIMax Weber and the State Monopoly on ViolenceConclusionIntroductionFormer Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis recently posted a video on his Facebook page in which he "denounced" the Black Lives Matter movement for making black people feel like victims when “every day we have black attacks” -Black crime is killing each other. But Ray Lewis doesn't understand that this "black on black killing each other" is just a variation on a common theme that has infiltrated society since its beginnings, and is not unique to BLM or 'one of the other groups that faced similar events. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay This article will be divided into five parts. In the first part, I will discuss the main situation of overrepresentation – colonialism – where I will discuss how this common situation works in relation to the indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand, and then I will discuss the rates of American Indian and Alaska Native crime. In the second part, I will discuss a case of European vigilance that has lasted for over thirty years. In part three, I will discuss overrepresentation in the Black American community, as well as theories on possible causes. The fourth part will be a discussion of Max Webers' state monopoly on the theory of violence and finally, I will conclude with a common sense reductionist solution: ColonialismColonialism is a practice of domination; it involves the subjugation of one people to another. It is often difficult to distinguish colonialism from imperialism, but for the purposes of this article I will use the definition of formal colonialism, which is the classic physical expansion of a state and its encroachment into another territory. The reasons for colonialism are economic and political, with the objectives being the acquisition of wealth, territory and domination. Marginalization is therefore a direct consequence of colonialism. Before colonization began, indigenous peoples around the world had their own social structures. The societies were autonomous; they had structures that ensured the transmission of knowledge and culture and had efficient economic systems. Indigenous peoples were seen as an exploitable group, or a disposable resource, to be used as laborers to extract a highly coveted and extremely profitable resource: land. The most important colonial processes when discussing the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system are: depopulation; legal control; the use of ideology through religion; education and media; urbanization; and paternalism. The indigenous peoples of Australia, Canada and America were all invaded by "settlers" from European countries during the colonial period, from around 1492 to the present. The processes employed were strikingly similar in each country and produced remarkably similar results: the socio-economic and political marginalization of the original indigenous peoples. Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoplesIndigenous Australians (peoplesAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people) make up 26% of the Australian prison population. yet they represent only 2.5 percent of the Australian population. Aboriginal people are significantly over-represented in homicides and crimes – 13% of victims and 11% of offenders. Yet it would be a mistake to jump straight into a discussion of the various aspects of Aboriginal Australians and crime without a crucial understanding of: as Aboriginal Paul Colele would describe--the 200 year history of Aboriginal oppression by Europeans in Australia. In short, Aboriginal imprisonment cannot be understood without the broader power relations that shaped the nature of the colonial response to Aboriginal communities, both historically and in modern reality in Australia. Australian colonizationAboriginal people have been present on the Australian continent for at least 50,000 people. years old and they have one of the oldest cultures in the world. Although there is much debate about the number of Aboriginal Australians before the arrival of Europeans, estimates of their population in 1788 ranged from 300,000 to over a million, a total of over 500 nations distinct aborigines. These Aboriginal nations had only minimal contact with Europeans, mainly with Dutch explorers on the coasts and with Lieutenant James Cook who claimed the east coast for England in 1770. Upon his return to England, Cook reports inspired the establishment of a penal colony in this new region. “claimed” land. Britain launched the "First Fleet" of ships to establish a colony of young convicts in "a remote part of the globe", which eventually settled at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788. This new colony was designed to reducing overcrowding in British prisons, expanding the Empire, declaring the British claim to the territory against other colonial powers, and establishing a British base in the Global South. What the new colony was designed to do and what the new white colony actually did are two very different things. The effect these new settlers had on Australia's first inhabitants cannot be overstated. The Aboriginal population was decimated by European disease, deliberate poisoning, violent conflict with settlers, acquisition of Aboriginal land by settlers, and death from sexual abuse. The years between 1788 and 1928 defined the longest and still largely unknown war in Australian history, a war which lasted 130 years and resulted in Aboriginal depopulation of well over 90%. Journalist and philanthropist Edward Wilson described the colonization of Australia thus: In less than twenty years we have almost wiped them from the face of the earth. We shot them like dogs. Under the guise of friendship, we introduced a corrosive sublimate into their shock absorber and sent entire tribes to the agonies of an agonizing death. We have made them drunkards, we have infected them with diseases that have rotted the bones of their adults, and we have made the few children who are born among them a sorrow and a torture from the very moment of their birth. We have made them pariahs in their own lands and are quickly condemning them to complete annihilation. But the colonization of Australia did not simply happen when the First Fleet landed in Australia in the late 1700s; this was only the beginning.Criminal justiceAustralian settlement developed and progressed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and Australia's being a settled colony had two direct legal consequences for Aboriginal people. Firstly, theAborigines were legally deprived of any rights to land. Second, they were theoretically equal under the law to white settlers. The first opportunity to test this later theory was the case of R. v. Murrell, in which a black native named Jack Congo Murrell was charged with the willful murder of another black native named Jabbingee. The defendant's lawyer argued that British law was not binding on the men: The reason why the subjects of Great Britain are bound by the laws of their own country is that they are protected by those -this; the natives are not protected by these laws; they are not admitted as witnesses in court, they cannot claim any civil rights, they cannot obtain restitution or compensation for the lands that were taken from them and which they have probably held for centuries. They are therefore not bound by laws which do not grant them any protection. The court ultimately rejected the defendant's argument because crimes committed against others in the colony were punishable by protection of his civil rights. Yet on other occasions the court was inconsistent with the principle that Aboriginal people were equal before the law. At the murder trial of another Aboriginal man, the Chief Justice of the South Australian Supreme Court ruled that there had been no crime, on the grounds that, claiming no protection of the law, the aborigines owed him no allegiance. However, since 1860 it has been generally accepted that the courts should treat Aboriginal people on an equal footing with other citizens. Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) was a royal commission appointed by the Australian Government in October 1987. underlying deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, in light of the ninety-nine Aboriginal deaths "in custody" since 1980. The investigation was extremely thorough, but did not successful. We have not concluded that these deaths were the result of deliberate violence or brutality by police or prison staff. Yet the issue of racism was fundamental to the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission concluded that racism was "institutionalized and systemic, and resides not only in individuals or in individual institutions, but in the relationships between various institutions" and that the police play a definitive role in reproducing this subordination. According to one of the report's commissioners, Elliot Johnson, non-Indigenous people have a lot of difficulty understanding institutionalized racism. The ancient method of protection and assimilation was obvious, but institutionalized racism in the modern period is more subtle and not always easily identifiable. Elliot Johnson defines institutionalized racism as: An institution that has significant relationships with Indigenous peoples and has rules, practices, and habits that systematically discriminate against or otherwise disadvantage Indigenous peoples , clearly engages in institutional discrimination or racism. The Royal Commission recognized the importance of history and the complexity of the interaction between Aboriginal people and the criminal justice system. One of the Commission's key findings was that a multitude of factors, both historical and contemporary, interact to cause Aboriginal people to be seriously over-represented in custody and to die tragically there. Much of the current situation of Aborigines and modelsof interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous societies are a direct consequence of their experience of colonialism and, indeed, the recent past. The Royal Commission concluded its report by saying that the Aboriginal population was significantly over-represented in detention; “Too many Indigenous people are detained too often. » It made 339 recommendations which can be divided into three groups: 126 address underlying issues, 107 address deaths in custody, and 106 address overrepresentation in the criminal justice system. The Royal Commission offered two suggestions on how to alleviate the problem of overrepresentation. The first approach was to reform the criminal justice system; the second was to address the more fundamental factors that bring Indigenous people into contact with the criminal justice system – the underlying issues related to overrepresentation. The Australian Commonwealth and Aboriginal community reacted very differently to the Royal Commission report. The Commonwealth responded very positively, quickly accepting the Commission's findings and agreeing to support almost all of the recommendations. The Commonwealth also accompanied the recommendations for additional funding, in the form of $400 over five years, allocated to anti-drug and alcohol programs, support for Indigenous legal services, land acquisition and development, business development and employment programs. But the Aboriginal community saw the Commonwealth's response to the recommendation as merely a terse response, a mere dodging of the issues, rather than truly resolving them. Aboriginal people were also unhappy with the Commission's specific findings regarding Aboriginal deaths and the Commonwealth's response; they believed that the findings of the Royal Commission did not do them justice. The Commission failed, many Aborigines believed, because it failed to find investigations into large numbers of police or prison officers responsible for the direct causes of the deaths; and the officers found responsible were not duly prosecuted. Many felt that the Royal Commission had simply “whitewashed” wrongdoing and was a gross waste of resources. Aboriginal overrepresentation today Today, despite the Australian Commonwealth's assertions of authority and sovereignty, the criminal justice system, seen by many Aboriginal people as strictly the justice system of colonial society. The police force is made up of predominantly white men and does not reflect a multicultural Australia. Some outsiders see it as a way to control and shape a colonized people. Relations between the police and the Aborigines vary greatly, depending on the place, time, recent events and the police officers involved. However, generally speaking, this relationship could be described as fragile, tense and unstable. Many members of Aboriginal communities continue to be suspicious and distrustful of the police, and can often expect the police to treat them unfairly and violently. The relationship between Aboriginal people and the police is so lacking in trust that even small misunderstandings can lead to a crisis of confidence in the police. But this lack of confidence is not unjustified: after a bloody colonial struggle characterized by dispossession and genocide, Aboriginal people find themselves deprived of their land, their means of subsistence, their culture, their dignity and their status. , doing nothing but getting drunk, swearing, indulging in vagrancy, petty thefts and walks. remains to fill the void. High levels of Aboriginal imprisonment have sincelong a concern in Australia. Indeed, Indigenous Australians have been described as one of the most imprisoned groups in the world. CanadaNearly a quarter of Canada's homicide victims in 2014 were Indigenous, even though the country's Indigenous people only make up five percent of the population. Canada is home to just over 1.4 million First Nations, Inuit and Métis people and they represent twenty-three percent of the 516 homicide victims in Canada. Data shows that Indigenous people are over-represented both as offenders and as victims of crime. Indigenous people have been charged with homicide at a rate ten times higher than non-Indigenous people. Perhaps more importantly, most incidents of violent victimization were never brought to the attention of police in 2014, even though most incidents of non-violent victimization were not reported. to the attention of the police either. In recent years, Canadian criminologists have conducted extensive research into the problem of the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system. Theories Canada is at a crossroads in its political history and in the history of its treatment of indigenous peoples. Canada's Aboriginal people experience a level of victimization that has been described as "unacceptable in every way". This unacceptable level of victimization has given rise to much research aimed at finding explanations for the high rates of Aboriginal crime and victimization. A consensus appears to be emerging around versions of a theory of cross-cultural or traumatic victimization rooted in the global effects of colonization and racism. Smandych, Lincoln and Wilson present a study that summarizes the various theories explaining Aboriginal criminal behavior. They look to both Canada and Australia to examine various explanations for Indigenous overrepresentation, such as racial bias, visibility, cultural factors, legal factors, extralegal factors, excessive police surveillance and other explanations . Their aim, although doubtful as to the political effect they may have, is to identify a "cross-cultural" theory of Aboriginal crime that would be broad enough to explain all aspects of Aboriginal criminal behavior. Although there is no clear answer to this conundrum, Chartrand and McKay's research shows that factors such as alcohol abuse and poverty are increasingly recognized as symptoms of a more complex explanation. broad based on the impact of colonization. and Alaska Natives. Native American nations have a unique legal and political relationship with the United States. The United States recognizes the right of tribes to self-government and supports their tribal sovereignty. Native Americans face social issues that create a destructive environment that directly affects them. Lack of educational opportunities, high unemployment, permanent residency issues, homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, and geographic isolation are realities that contribute to the proliferation of social problems faced by Native Americans. Nationally, twenty-seven percent of Native American families live below the poverty line, compared to 11.6 percent among white families. In the United States, federally recognized tribes are considered dependent of the country and have the inherent authority to govern themselves within the country's borders. Tribal members have citizenship rights in the United States, but also maintain their own tribal governments, communities, and cultures.Some tribal nations rely on state and federal governments to enforce the law, but many tribes have their own government and court systems. Indian reservations across the United States have struggled for years with chronic crime rates higher than many of the nation's most violent cities. America's 310 Indian reservations experience violent crime rates more than two and a half times the national average. Native Americans, unlike other races, were more likely to report that the offender was of a different race, and foreigners accounted for seventeen percent of Native American murders. Native Americans face social issues that create a destructive environment that directly affects them. Lack of educational opportunities, high unemployment, permanent residency issues, homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, and geographic isolation are realities that contribute to the proliferation of social problems faced by Native Americans. Nationally, twenty-seven percent of Native American families live below the poverty line, compared to 11.6 percent among white families. American scholars recognize that marginalization is linked to criminal problems and that colonialism still impacts criminal justice in indigenous communities. Even so, there is a misunderstanding between marginalization and colonialism between state decision-makers – federal prosecutors – and Indian tribes. In 2011, federal prosecutors declined to file charges in 52 percent of cases involving the most serious crimes committed on Indian reservations. In Alaska specifically, the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the United States, with 603.2 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, compared to 603.2 per 100,000 residents. national average of 386.9. This may be due in part to the fact that there are at least seventy-five Alaska Native villages that have no law enforcement. With no police and few courts, most Alaska Native villages are forced to rely on Alaska State Troopers. But there is only about one soldier per million acres, so getting to rural communities can often take days. Law enforcement blames Alaska weather for delay in response; Alaska Natives see a more sinister pattern: a low priority given to protecting local populations. Disproportionate incarceration is not the problem of a single ethnic group or set of historical circumstances. This is a global problem fundamentally linked to social group identity. Biases, inequalities, and disparate impact policy problems are not just characteristics and problems of particular groups, but are common to heterogeneous developed countries in which some groups perform significantly less well economically and socially than the population majority. more colloquially called "The Troubles", is one of the longest and most tangled confrontations in recent history. For almost four decades now, it has soured relations between and within the communities living there and spoiled relations between the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain, while It has also caused serious tensions within these last. For three decades, the situation intensified, highlighted by periodic bloody clashes followed by milder periods of tension, during which violence of all types – thefts, kidnappings, serious injuries and deaths – were all too frequent. " was the most recent episode of violenceover three decades between nationalists (primarily identifying as Irish and/or Roman Catholic) and unionists (primarily identifying as British and/or Protestant) in Ireland. The conflict was the result of discrimination against the Nationalist/Catholic minority by the Unionist/Protestant majority and the question of Northern Ireland's status within the United Kingdom. The violence was characterized by armed campaigns by Irish Republican and Ulster Loyalist paramilitary groups and British state security forces. According to Lost Lives by David McKittrick, 3,720 people were killed as a result of the 'Troubles' from 1966 to 2006. Explanations/Future PerspectivesTheory to help explain the thirty-year conflict between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Consociational theory is considered one of the most influential theories in comparative political science; his main argument is that in divided societies, with peoples historically antagonistic ethnically, religiously or linguistically, they are managed "effectively, prudently and sometimes optimally", according to consociational principles. The consociational principle is an argument according to which consociational democracies respect four organizational principles: executive power sharing (EPS). Each of the main communities shares executive power, within an executive chosen in accordance with the principles of representative government. Autonomy or self-government. Each enjoys some measure of distinct autonomy, particularly self-government in cultural matters. Proportionality. Everyone is proportionally represented in major public institutions and benefits proportionally from public resources and spending. Right of veto. Everyone is capable of preventing changes that harm their vital interests. Regardless of why the "Troubles" began, they had a lasting effect on the population of Northern Ireland, comparable even to that of the Blitz on the population of London. Due to the stress resulting from bombings, street unrest, security checks and constant military presence, people in Northern Ireland are pessimistic and believe that vigilantism and paramilitary attacks have become the norm. and are expected to continue. But Knox and Moghan argue that these pessimistic views are not laws of nature and should not continue. While it is necessary to continue to focus on the multiple causes of violence and to focus on policing and the criminal justice system, this is not enough to combat community crime. Communities feel alienated and excluded from mainstream society, whether as a result of economic disparities, bitter conflict and/or political opposition, until their trust can be assured and communities feel at home. newly empowered, vigilantism and paramilitaries will continue to exercise their power. own form of justice and exercise control. Blacks in America. This section could very likely have been placed under the title Colonization. The circumstances and realities that African slaves faced once in America are similar to those of indigenous peoples around the world, but placing them under this heading would not have done this section justice. So, black people in America are entitled to their own section. Although angry at strong moral biases, one way or another the antebellum pro-slavery and anti-slavery debates are a good place to begin a discussion about the overrepresentation of blacks . in the American criminal justice system. The pro-slavery camp advances manyarguments: the ointment trade was necessary to Britain's success and wealth; if Britain did not engage in this trade, others would; moving Africans away from their home countries actually benefited them; slaves were unfit for any other work; slaves were only mistreated if they were rebellious. Conditions on board the slave ships were acceptable; and slavery was accepted in the Bible. The anti-slavery society countered the pro-slavery society by providing evidence to refute the arguments: There were alternatives to trade; if something is wrong, it is wrong, whether others do it or not; the slavery that existed in Africa was very different from the transatlantic slave trade; the African people are in no way inferior and must be treated as equals; trade was detrimental to Africa; Africans suffered greatly from being removed from their homeland; it was morally wrong and, as a Christian country, Britain should not be involved. The pro-slavery camp won the battle and America embarked on the worst two hundred and fifty years in its history, ninety years of racist Jim Crow laws and sixty years of separation but equality. . Post-World War II American history is riddled with countless local conflicts, with state and federal policies that established racial barriers negatively affecting black people today. Consider the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). On the surface, the legislation signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt to create the FHA in 1934 was intended to encourage homeownership among all Americans as he sought to lead the nation from the depths of the Great Depression. For white families, the law achieved this goal. Their homeownership rates have increased significantly, meaning many of them have built wealth and a future for their children. At the same time, the FHA has used federal rules to further push back people of color. The federal government instituted the insidious policy we know today as redlining, which prohibited banks from making FHA-backed loans in “black neighborhoods.” Federal housing authorities used a manual that literally drew red lines around black communities on neighborhood maps, telling banks where they could not lend. Ultimately, these policies solidified the structure of racial segregation in America and denied black families the opportunity to create wealth for themselves and opportunities for their children at a time when white families were moving up the economic ladder. Black families fell further behind a decade later when the GI Bill offered generous benefits that allowed veterans to pay for college and buy homes with low-cost mortgages. While white veterans used the GI Bill to great advantage, discriminatory practices systematized by government structures often prevented blacks whose valor had helped defeat fascism abroad from being denied the American dream by racist processes and practices in their country. Housing, transportation, and development policies also separated blacks. better paid jobs. Businesses are increasingly migrating from cities where most black people live to suburban areas that are difficult to access due to a lack of public transportation. Recently, many researchers and advocates have highlighted thelack of adequate funding for schools with high populations of black children and disproportionate funding of schools. placement of teachers with inadequate training and experience in their classrooms. Many black children, who aspire to become the first in their family to complete college, are forced to rely on the underfunded community college system or go into enormous debt to achieve that dream. Decade after decade, children of color face more and more obstacles. to opportunities: overly harsh school disciplinary policies that often trap them in juvenile justice systems, racial profiling by police and disproportionate arrests of people of color, harsher penalties for the same offenses, and a greater likelihood that young people of color be judged as adults. and incarcerated in adult prisons as whites for the same conduct.Max Weber and the State Monopoly on ViolenceEric H Monkkoneen shows how a nation-state functions when it has a violent and diverse society, in Murder in New York . A state achieves this, according to Monkkoneen, by successfully accomplishing something that Max Weber outlined in his work Politics as Vocation: the state succeeds in establishing a state monopoly on violence, in which citizens willing to abandon their power to take personal revenge for the benefit of the State. The state can only impose this monopoly on violence if its citizens follow a process described by Nobert Elias in The Civilizing Process. Citizens pacify their personal behavior, a prerequisite for the modern and complex state. This slow spread of impulse control, according to Elias, was so mutually beneficial to all that it became an important social value. Now you have the nice suburbs where mom and dad respect and obey the police and crime is low, but you also have the inner city where a lot of young black men who have lived in an over-policed ​​and poorly-policed ​​inner city served live their entire lives. and now they have not renounced their personal vengeance for the benefit of the State. Honestly, the author doesn't understand why more people haven't taken away the power of personal vengeance from the state. Maybe that's all they have to feel like a human being. Conclusion The reason for the overrepresentation of certain groups in the criminal justice system is not simply because they are simply more likely to break the law because they are lazy, mean, or immoral. . The company gave us the answer. All we need to do is listen. Monkkoneen doesn't want policymakers, scientists or professionals to be too reductionist, because the answer is, according to Monkkoneen, not so clear. But if you sit back, wait, and do too many meta-analyses or cross-cultural surveys, you may never find the solution to help solve the problems of criminal overrepresentation of communities around the world. To recap, Australian Aborigines, Canadian Aborigines, Native Americans and Alaska Natives. , black Americans and the Northern Irish, the world is full of examples. Monkkoneen has already solved the world's biggest puzzle. The key is in the door; All he has to do is turn it and the door will open. This document does not claim to be a panacea for overrepresentation in the criminal justice system. All we're trying to do is allow people to see what they've already seen. I think the problem is the fear of being seen as racist! I've written before about the worst thing you can say to a white person, which is.