Where criminal offences committed by a member of an Aboriginal community impinge predominantly upon the offender's own group rather than the wider community, and there is a local mechanism of control or substitute for conventional punishment, courts may frame a sentencing response in recognition of what will happen to the offender at the hands of his or her own people. However, a community desire that a person not be sent to gaol should not as such influence the determination of whether the offender should serve time in gaol. Cultural pressure, lack of training, and the greater severity of incarceration for an Aboriginal person from an isolated community are legitimate mitigating factors, but wholly suspended sentences for misappropriation of this magnitude will be exceptional.
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