This website explains how to apply existing Australian research ethics guidelines to criminology and criminal justice research and evaluations that involve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. 

 

Currently, criminology and criminal justice research and evaluations must use the following:

• the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research (AIATSIS Code of Ethics) (2020) and the A Guide to Applying the AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research (2020); and/or

• the Ethical conduct in research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and communities: Guidelines for researchers and stakeholders (2018), while also completing a Human Research Ethics Application based on the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (NHMRC) (2007) and the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018). 

 

While these are guidelines for all research, they were not developed specifically for criminology and criminal justice, resulting in discipline-specific gaps.

 

The field of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led research has continually developed in Australia. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities to trust researchers, and to overcome damage caused by research in the past, 

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“[e]thical research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and communities must:

• improve the way all researchers work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their communities

• develop and/or strengthen research capabilities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their communities

• enhance the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples as researchers, research partners, collaborators and participants in research.” (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2018, p. 1)

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Criminology and criminal justice researchers often ask the following questions when applying existing research guidelines:

• My research is using existing administrative, quantitative data and secondary analysis rather than collecting new data from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but the guidelines say Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities must direct or be active participants in research – what do I do?

 

• Our team’s research focuses on all people in prison, not only Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We didn’t design the research to be specifically about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The ethics committee told us we need to follow the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander guidelines, but it means big changes – what do we do?

 

This website and our explanations of ethics principles help answer these questions. 

 

We also seek to answer the following questions:

 

• How should and do we as researchers take into account the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the criminal justice system?’

 

• How can criminology and criminal justice research and evaluations better use the values, knowledge systems and expertise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities?