Abstract
In 2006, on Australian television, Nanette Rogers, a Northern Territory Public Prosecutor, shocked a national audience with extreme examples of child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities. When asked why she thought such things were happening, she explained:
the malaise is mostly because of the entrenchment of violence in the whole of the community. But there is also a second aspect and that is that Aboriginal people here are overwhelmed time and time again by a fresh new tragedy. (Rogers, 2006)
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© 2012 Heather Douglas and Mark Finnane
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Douglas, H., Finnane, M. (2012). ‘Benign Pessimism’: A National Emergency. In: Indigenous Crime and Settler Law. Palgrave Macmillan Socio-Legal Studies. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137284983_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137284983_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-33979-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-28498-3
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