Social Determinants of Justice

The Social Determinants of Justice Research Hub at UNSW builds on original research by Ruth McCausland and Eileen Baldry that conceptualises the social determinants of justice: the factors associated with a higher likelihood of initial and ongoing contact with the criminal justice system.

This research hub aims to further develop that work through systems-focused and community-led research and education that aims to address those determinants and reduce the criminalisation and incarceration of disadvantaged and targeted groups of people.

Australia's criminal justice system is far from just. While crime rates are decreasing and governments have committed to reducing reoffending, the incarceration rates of certain groups of people remain shamefully high. These groups include Indigenous people, those with mental and cognitive disability, and people experiencing drug and alcohol issues and homelessness. Australia's high and increasing rates of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people are particularly harmful and concerning.

The social determinants of justice are structural

The original research to identify the factors associated with people's initial and ongoing criminal justice involvement involved meta-analysis of studies of a dataset containing information on 2,731 people who have been incarcerated in NSW. The data comes from government agencies: NSW police, courts, corrections, and health and human services agencies such as housing and child protection. The dataset is longitudinal, meaning the contact people had with services and institutions is observable over time—from engagement with child protection services and police, to admissions to hospital and time spent in custody.

Eight factors were identified as social determinants of justice, with analysis showing that your chance of ending up in prison is greatly increased by:

having been in out-of-home care
receiving a poor school education
being Indigenous
having early contact with police
having unsupported mental health and cognitive disability
problematic alcohol and other drug use
experiencing homelessness or unstable housing
coming from or living in a disadvantaged location.

The more of these factors experienced, the more likely people in the dataset were to be incarcerated and reincarcerated. They were often in custody on remand (not yet sentenced) and for minor offences, cycling in and out of the system over many years.

There are structural factors at play in people’s involvement in the criminal justice system. For example, a person with cognitive disability who grew up in a middle class family with access to early support is very unlikely to go to prison, even if they are involved in offending. They have greater access to social advantages than, say, an Aboriginal person with cognitive disability from a remote town that has many police officers but few social services.

Government administrative data highlights how many people end up in youth and adult detention after child protection, education, disability and health services fail them. Activists and advocates from racialised and disadvantaged communities have been speaking up about this for many years.

Therefore the concept of the social determinants of justice was further developed to identify the “causes of the causes” of who goes to prison:

entrenchment of poverty and unequal access to resources in families and neighbourhoods
structural racism and discrimination, in particular experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and people with disability
failure to adequately respond to the abuse, violence and trauma experienced by so many children and young people
operation of the criminal legal system itself in the way that it is criminogenic; that is, it increases rather than reduces the likelihood of future incarceration.

The social determinants of justice show up in the over-surveillance of certain communities, lack of access to well-resourced legal representation, not being granted diversionary options and bail, and limited specialist services and support.

All this highlights that we need broader system and policy changes to reduce the unacceptable social and economic costs of incarceration.