Indigenous Sentencing Outcomes: a comparative analysis of the Nunga and Magistrates Courts in South Australia

Abstract

Indigenous sentencing courts are touted by Australian governments as a key response to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Despite their introduction over a decade ago, research on these courts, particularly in terms of sentencing outcomes for Indigenous offenders, has been limited. This study provides a comparative analysis of sentencing outcomes for Indigenous offenders sentenced through Indigenous and conventional court processes. Using data from the South Australian conventional Magistrates Court and Nunga Court between 2007 and 2009, the analysis highlights three sentencing outcomes of particular importance for their recognised differential impacts on Indigenous offenders: imprisonment, monetary, and disqualification of driver's licence orders. Independent of other crucial sentencing factors, defendants sentenced in the Nunga Court were significantly less likely than Indigenous offenders in the conventional courts to receive these types of orders.