Culture, Strengths, and Risk: The Language of Pre-Sentence Reports in Indigenous Sentencing Courts and Mainstream Courts

Pre-sentence reports (PSRs) provide important information about an individual’s background and circumstances to assist judicial officers in the sentencing process. The present study analyzed PSRs for 63 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people sentenced by either an Indigenous sentencing court o...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:  
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Coulter, Darcy J. (Autor)
Otros Autores: Forkan, Abdur Rahim Mohammad ; Kang, Yong-Bin ; Trounson, Justin S. ; Anthony, Thalia ; Marchetti, Elena ; Shepherd, Stephane M.
Tipo de documento: Electrónico Artículo
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: 2023
En: Criminal justice and behavior
Año: 2023, Volumen: 50, Número: 1, Páginas: 76-100
Acceso en línea: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Journals Online & Print:
Gargar...
Verificar disponibilidad: HBZ Gateway
Palabras clave:
Descripción
Sumario:Pre-sentence reports (PSRs) provide important information about an individual’s background and circumstances to assist judicial officers in the sentencing process. The present study analyzed PSRs for 63 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people sentenced by either an Indigenous sentencing court or a mainstream court in the Australian State of Victoria. Using natural language processing techniques, our analyses revealed few differences between PSRs conducted for each court. However, PSRs were found to predominantly feature key words that are risk-based, with mainstream court PSRs more negatively worded than the Indigenous sentencing court’s PSRs. This may have been due to the inclusion of results from a risk and need assessment tool. Pro-social factors did comprise more than one third of extracted keywords, although the number of strength-based culture-related keywords, in particular, was low across PSRs in both courts. It is possible that courts may not be receiving all the information needed to promote individualized justice.
ISSN:1552-3594
DOI:10.1177/00938548221131952