The Lives Behind the Statistics: Policing Practices in Aboriginal Literature

Abstract

In contemporary Australia Aboriginal parents, and parents of Aboriginal kids, work to prepare their children for potentially negative encounters with police. Racialised policing practices target and enact state sanctioned violence upon Aboriginal communities. Statistics evidence these practices, with Aboriginal people being over-represented in all aspects of the criminal justice system. This paper explores the stories behind the statistics through a detailed examination of Boori Monty Pryor’s young adult fiction novel Njunjul the Sun. Close reading of this text illustrates how Aboriginal literature can deepen our understanding of social indicators through narrativising the complex and nuanced experiences of police and policing practices, including racist police violence.