Professorial Lecture: Community Justice in Australia - Presented by Brian Stout

This paper argues that a community justice response is needed to respond to the issues of offending in Australia as the issues and concerns go beyond criminal justice responses and link to ideas of social justice. It draws on international applications and understandings of community justice to suggest that the approach to offending should promote fairness and positive social outcomes. The current Australian response to offending reflects Australian penal history and its exclusionary and punitive approach to the treatment of offenders. The most urgent priority is the significant over-representation and mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in both youth justice and the adult criminal justice system. A community justice approach will invest resources in community development, not just in incarceration and punishment. It will seek to build community by promoting social justice values in responding to victims and offenders. Professor Stout will draw on his international experience to argue that a community justice approach in Australia - incorporating an appropriate recruitment and training of corrections personnel - would rightly place human rights and social justice values at the heart of the criminal justice system.

BIOGRAPHY: Professor Brian Stout is Professor of Social Work, Deputy Dean, School of Social Sciences and Psychology and Provost, Liverpool Campus, Western Sydney University. Professor Stout’s most recent book is ‘Community Justice in Australia’ (2017, Allen and Unwin). He has worked in probation and youth justice as a practitioner, teacher and researcher in Northern Ireland, England, South Africa and now Australia.

RSVP: SSAP-Events@westernsydney.edu.au(opens in a new window)