Cunneen, Chris --- "Contemporary Penality in the Shadow of Colonial Patriarchy" [2013] UNSWLRS 4
Last Updated: 8 February 2013
Contemporary Penality in the Shadow of Colonial Patriarchy
Chris Cunneen, University of New South
Wales
This paper was available at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2196709
Citation
This paper was included in G.Coventry & M.Shircore (eds.),
Proceedings of the 5th Annual Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology
Conference: July 7 and 8, Cairns, QLD: James Cook University, 2012. This paper
may also be referenced as [2013] UNSWLRS 4.
Abstract
Imprisonment in
Australia has been a growing industry and large numbers of vulnerable people
find themselves in a state of serial
incarceration. Women and Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples in particular have experienced rapidly expanding
imprisonment
rates over recent decades. Our argument is this article is
relatively straightforward: to understand contemporary penal culture and
in
particular its severity and excess in relation to Indigenous people and women,
we need to draw upon an understanding of the dynamics
of colonial patriarchy.
Although at a micro level, specific legislation and policy changes have
negatively impacted on the imprisonment
of vulnerable groups, it is within a
broader context of the strategies and techniques of colonial patriarchy that we
can understand
why it is that particular social groups appear to become the
targets of penal excess.