Plan for special courts to hear indigenous child sex cases

This article discusses the radical overhaul considered in changing the nature of criminal justice in improving conviction rates in child sex assualts. f the plan goes ahead, specialist courts would be established to ensure sexually abused Aboriginal children are not intimidated into silence by the formality of traditional courts.

The reform plan has been produced by the National Child Sexual Assault Reform Committee (NCSARC).

The article looks at not only the problems of recidicivism and inappropirate measures used against xhild sex offenders but the problems encountered by children with the cimrinal justice system, in partciular ingidnous children.

The aim is to have specialist child sex offence courts as Australia has already established specialised Family Courts and Drug Courts. Data from Canada has demonstrated the effectives of a court of this kind.

There was also suggestion that the version of the Family Court inquisitorial model could be adapted to more appropriately manage cases involving sexual assault of indigenous children. As there is little hope to be able to encourage children and their families to go into a completely different cultural set-up, and to be able to give the sort of evidence that adversarial trials require.

See here