Sentencing Indigenous resisters as if the death in custody never occurred

By: Thalia Anthony

This paper addresses the trends in sentencing by higher courts of Indigenous protesters against ‘white’ racist violence. It contrasts earlier sentencing decisions affecting resisters on the Yarrabah Reserve in 1981 and towards the 1987 death in custody of Lloyd Boney at Brewarrina (NSW), with later sentencing of protesters after Mulrunji’s death in custody on Palm Island in 2004. It argues that Indigenous resisters are increasingly characterised by sentencing judges as out-of-control rather than capable of legitimate political engagement. This dovetails a denunciation of the Indigenous community in media moral panics that demands more punitive restraint.

Criminology and Law Enforcement; 12/2009