Urban indigenous young people: Criminality, accommodation or resistance

This chapter compares self-reported offending rates of urban Indigenous young people who have not been processed by the criminal justice system to those reported by two other Sibling Study cohorts: the School cohort and the Vulnerable cohort. It focuses upon individual attributes associated with offending and general attitudes regarding self and peers and describes particular beliefs regarding the law and police. The chapter refers to the urban Indigenous cohort as simply the 'Indigenous' cohort, the group is distinctively 'urban' and any findings should not be generalized to rural or remote groups of Indigenous young people. It compares the offending behaviours of each of the three cohorts, using the Australian Self-Report Delinquency Scale. Regarding parental employment, the Indigenous and Vulnerable cohorts are clearly disadvantaged, relative to the School group, albeit in different ways. The School cohort is more likely than the other two to feel that their parents are interested in their lives and provide emotional support.