Race, crime and region: the socio-spatial dynamics of Aboriginal offending

Patterns of indigenous over-representation in the criminal justice systems of settler societies such as Australia and Canada exhibit a strong spatial component, with rural and remote regions showing higher levels both of seri ous crime and of punitive response. In Australia, these patterns have been the subject of recent cultural geographies of Aboriginal offending which re ly on limited functionalist models of the effects of modernisation. An alte rnative model is proposed, which interprets these variations in the light o f socio-spatial theories of postmodernisation. A probit analysis of rates o f Aboriginal offending across Australian jurisdictions reveals a close rela tionship between levels of seriousness of crime and levels of cultural stab ility and socioeconomic stress.