Marginalisation, Managerialism and Wrongful Conviction in Australia

Abstract

Wrongful convictions have become a growing area of concern among legal scholars, reflecting the success of the global innocence movement that aims to exonerate factually innocent people convicted of crimes they did not commit. While research into wrongful conviction has focused on specific errors such as investigator misconduct, witness misidentification or false confessions, less attention has been given to the role of race and class in leading to these errors. This article raises these issues and the concern as to how Indigenous Australians may be particularly vulnerable to wrongful conviction as a function of a managerialist approach to criminal justice prioritising efficiency, expediency and risk management over due process. The adoption of such an approach has not only exacerbated Indigenous persons' overrepresentation, but has also heightened their vulnerability to miscarriages of justice. The vulnerability is largely due to issues of cross-cultural communication, often negative interactions with police, and increasing difficulty in accessing adequate legal representation. This article argues that wrongful convictions, much like other features of the criminal justice system, are likely to disproportionately affect people belonging to typically marginalised social groups.