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Racism and the Criminal Justice System

When

Event Status

For the next edition of our Not Racist, But series, we’ll discuss racial bias in the criminal justice system – from policing and legal aid to jury selection and sentencing.

Indigenous Australians account for just 2% of our country’s overall population and more than a quarter of our adult prison population. How, specifically, is this a function of explicit and structural racism across various facets of our enforcement and justice systems? And how are all non-white Australians – especially those from refugee backgrounds – disadvantaged when interacting with police and with the courts?

In this discussion, host Santilla Chingaipe and the panel will explore how racial discrimination and bias play out on a daily and inter-generational basis in Australia. We’ll look at racial data collection, too, and how sensationalist media reporting can skew perception, politics and policy.

Featuring

Santilla Chingaipe

Santilla Chingaipe is a filmmaker, historian and author, whose work explores settler colonialism, slavery, and post-colonial migration in Australia. Chingaipe’s first book of non-fiction detailing the untold stories of convicts of African descent is forthcoming, and the critically acclaimed and aw... Read more

Fiona McLeod

Fiona McLeod SC is senior counsel practising at the Victorian Bar in public and commercial law. She is the Chair of the Accountability Round Table and formerly chair of Transparency International and the Open Government Forum. She is a Past President of the Law Council of Australia and the Australi... Read more

Roxanne Moore

Roxanne Moore is a Noongar woman and human rights lawyer from Margaret River in Western Australia. She is the Executive Officer for the National Peak Body on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS ). Previously, Roxanne was an Indigenous Rights Campaigner with Amnesty Internat... Read more

Tamar Hopkins

Tamar Hopkins is the founding lawyer of FKCLC’s Police Accountability Project and has been litigating, researching and writing in area of racial profiling and police accountability since 2006.  Tamar was a member of the legal team in number of high profile cases including Haile-Michael v Kon... Read more

Location

The Wheeler Centre

176 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

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The Wheeler Centre acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Centre stands. We acknowledge and pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their Elders, past and present, as the custodians of the world’s oldest continuous living culture.