More often than not, offenders suffer from the same symptoms as victims do. Offenders are often victims themselves, and their offending behaviour stems from trauma. When we
look at the trauma that offenders may be carrying, we must first look at cultural trauma, a form of trauma from which most other forms of trauma spring.It is safe to say that most offenders in Alice Springs are the victims of cultural trauma.
Culture suppresses anxieties, self-consciousness, and the awareness of mortality. It provides a sense of meaning and value. Existence would be anxiety-ridden
without that meaning and value. Engaging in cultural rituals, practices, and activities maintains one’s worldview.
Conflict over competing cultural priorities arises from unequal power and status between the members of a community. The dominant culture suppresses the minority’s cultural practices, motivated by the need to assert the significance of its own cultural worldviews.
Constant suppression of cultural practices brutally disrupts a culture, making it highly vulnerable to trauma.
Hence, cultural trauma is a condition in which cultural knowledge and practices have been weakened so that they fail to give meaning and value.
The results of cultural trauma are that members experience high anxiety levels, which leads to unhelpful coping strategies and forms of collective helplessness.
These unhelpful coping mechanisms may become the norm, thereby increasing the likelihood that cultural trauma and its effects are carried into the next generation.
The above observations provide us with an acute understanding of the situation of offenders in Alice Springs. The dominant European culture since settlement suppressed the cultural practices and knowledge of Aboriginal people.
For Aboriginal Australians, settlement meant forceful land dispossession, theft and rape of women, slavery, and the introduction of diseases. Missionary zeal made them convert to Western religion and reject their own spiritual beliefs. Settlement also meant that British
law displaced indigenous customary law.
In the recent past, the White Australia Policy and forced removal of children further destabilised Aboriginal social structures, cultural practices and cultural transmissions.
Legislative interference in the Native Title Act; confusing half-support for Aboriginal reconciliation; ambiguous reactions to the findings of the Stolen Generation report into the forced removal of children; the dismantling of ATSIC, which was deemed to be too preoccupied with symbolic issues; and a reluctance to mainstream Aboriginal services – all these have undermined the pursuit of indigenous cultural autonomy and encouraged a culture of dependency. Taken as a whole, this can be described, according to Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, as cultural genocide.
This is the cause of massive cultural trauma. This is the reason why our young people offend. This cannot be seen simply as a criminal issue; it must be seen as a public health
issue.
Interventions into cultural knowledge and practices lead to PTSD. This, in turn, causes the sky-high rates of imprisonment we see in the Northern Territory. It also causes infant mortality, suicide, substance abuse, medical conditions and lower life expectancies. Aboriginal people show incredibly high levels of hopelessness, helplessness,
disorientation, irritability and insomnia, and are four to five times more likely to die from the consequences of a mental disorder than the non-Aboriginal population.
Reliance on welfare income, income management, and nonsensical CDP “work for the dole” activities only exacerbates the perception of dependence and feelings of helplessness.
Of all approaches, the most promising and rewarding seem to be those that reinvigorate the Aboriginal culture and ways of life. Anecdotal evidence seems to support the idea that reconstruction of Aboriginal cultural meaning and relevance may help in addressing the problems of Aboriginal people.
Examples of programs in the Northern Territory that address cultural trauma are the Aboriginal Empowerment Program, which focused on family well-being; also, the Belyuen Health Centre showed that significant improvements in health outcomes of Aboriginal people were achieved by taking into consideration Aboriginal social kin relationships and responsibilities, methods of time-keeping, gender issues, and the use of traditional healers and language.
The Strong Women, Strong Babies, Strong Culture Program led to improvements in the health and well-being of pregnant women. This program consisted of taking participants out bush to collect bush food to increase exercise, and traditional pregnancy practices, such as the smoking ceremony. The program significantly decreased the rates of low birth weights and pre-term births amongst participants.
The effects of cultural trauma often involve law-related factors such as drug and alcohol problems and domestic violence. Therefore, cultural recovery is also relevant in the context of Aboriginal Australians' experience of the law. Cultural recognition has, after all, played out in the courts in Australia, most notably in the acknowledgment of Indigenous land rights in the Mabo case and in the Native Title Act. These have opened a narrow but hopeful path towards a Treaty, sovereignty, self-government, and restitution for past injustices.
Australian jurisdictions have begun, but soon ended, restorative justice practices that recognised the importance of Aboriginal culture in procedural justice before the law.
They were called the Nunga, Koori and Murri courts. The outcomes of using these courts were not reported well enough because of a lack of policy and funding.
The dominant culture often finds that Aboriginal Australians do not deserve to be treated any differently.
Secondary exposure to trauma occurs when children witness the past traumatic experiences of their family and community members who speak of massacres,
dispossession, slavery, rape, and violence that took place in the past. Without first addressing the healing needs of communities and their members, other interventions are
likely to have limited impact. It seems critical that healing programs have a vital element of restoring, reaffirming, and renewing cultural identity, connection to country and participation in community.
If done well, sustainable justice can play a significant part in this.
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