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The overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities within the criminal justice system has broad social and justice implications for those within these minority groups in terms of criminal justice responses, public perceptions and exacerbated marginalisation from the community. Understanding these implications and the associated challenges in addressing them is important for students who wish to pursue a career in the criminal justice sector, law, victim services, and community services. This course may also benefit students anticipating a career in areas such as education, social justice, psychology, and human services, where the effects and challenges attached with the criminal justice involvement of racial and ethnic minorities may also be present.

In a number of countries throughout the world, racial and ethnic minorities are overrepresented among the victims and perpetrators of crime. They are also more likely than members of corresponding majority populations to be arrested, detained, convicted, and receive harsher sentences. They are also less likely to utilise the criminal justice system as a complainant. The course will explore the context and some of the challenges associated with racial and ethnic minorities in connection with crime and criminal justice through a comparative perspective. This course aims to describe these patterns of overrepresentation and to challenge students to critically evaluate some of the major perceptions and explanations.

On successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. define key concepts such as race, ethnicity, ethnocentricity and minority status;
2. describe the main trends and patterns with respect to ethnicity and crime and the criminal justice system in Australia and other western democratic nations;
3. describe the main theoretical explanations for the overrepresentation of ethnic and racial minorities in the criminal justice system;
4. explain the meaning of discrimination, the forms it can take, and how best to evaluate claims about racial and/or ethnic discrimination in the criminal justice system;
5. discuss the challenges associated with the intervention and prevention, and in responding to crime and victimisation in ethnically diverse communities.