Aboriginal deaths in custody
Aboriginal deaths in custody is a political and social issue in Australia. It rose in prominence in the early 1980s, with Aboriginal activists campaigning following the death of 16-year-old John Peter Pat in 1983. Subsequent deaths in custody, considered suspicious by families of the deceased, culminated in the 1987 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
The final RCIADIC report, published in 1991, did not find higher rates of death of Aboriginal people compared to non-Aboriginal people; however, it did highlight deficiencies in care, both systemic and individual, and disproportionate rates of imprisonment due to historical and social factors., Aboriginal people maintain a disproportionate level of exposure to the justice system and incarceration in Australia. One of the recommendations of the RCIADIC was that statistics and other information on Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal deaths in custody should be monitored nationally on an ongoing basis, by the Australian Institute of Criminology. As Australian census and prison statistics include both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the counts have included both groups, as Indigenous Australians.
The Australian Institute for Health and Welfare reports that the total Indigenous age specific deaths in 2018 were 164 per 100,000 for 25-34 year olds, and 368 for 35-44 year olds. These are the most relevant age groups for the current 12,000 Indigenous prisoners, with a median age of 32. In a group of 12,000 Indigenous 25-44 year olds, an average yearly death rate of around 32 per year occurs even outside prison. The Indigenous death rate in prison is about 15 per year, or half of this.
As of June 2021 the AIC had recorded 489 Indigenous deaths in custody since the Royal Commission. The majority had been prison deaths with almost all the rest of the deaths in police custody or custody related operations. The AIC's monitoring program reports Indigenous Australians have made up 18% of prison deaths and 20% of deaths in police custody or custody related operations in this time. This is well above their proportion in the general population that was 3.3% in the 2016 national census.
Although the majority of deaths occurring in prison custody have been of natural causes, hanging deaths accounted for 32%, but the latter have shown a marked decrease in recent years. Although they are greatly over-represented in the prisons, Indigenous prisoners have had a lower death rate than non-Indigenous prisoners since 2003. In 2020-21 the death rate for Indigenous prisoners was 0.09 per 100 compared to the non-Indigenous rate of 0.18. Unfortunately, for technical reasons it is not possible to calculate death rates of Indigenous or non-Indigenous people in police custody or custody related operations. Of deaths in police custody, the total between mid-1991 and mid-2016 was 146, with 47% attributed to accidental death. 21% were attributed to natural causes, with self-inflicted deaths accounting for 19%. There is, however, a number of cases in which calls have been made for greater scrutiny, as avoidable deaths, such as those of Ms Dhu, Tanya Day, David Dungay and Rebecca Maher. Additional protests focusing on Aboriginal deaths in custody, accompanied by renewed media attention, were triggered by the murder of George Floyd in the US as part of the June 2020 protests in Australia.
Aboriginal deaths in custody and high incarceration rates were originally absent from the Australian Government's "Closing the Gap" strategy. As part of a 2018 pivot to a new phase, the Council of Australian Governments drafted targets to reduce Aboriginal custody rates by 2028.
Background
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
Concern about the high number of Aboriginal people who had died in custody in the 1980s led to the establishment of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1987, to investigate and report upon the underlying social, cultural and legal issues behind the deaths, including allegations of mistreatment of prisoners which may have led to their deaths. It ran from 1987 to 1991, investigating the period between 1 January 1980 and 31 May 1989, producing its final report in April 1991.The 1988 Australian Institute of Criminology publication, Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, says "The issue of Aboriginal deaths in prisons and holding cells is particularly complex". The report looks at the cases identified by RCIADIC by April 1988. Criminologist Duncan Chappell, in his introduction to the report, writes that while the "problem of death in custody is by no means limited to Aboriginals", the "problem of Aboriginal deaths in custody is linked to fundamental issues which go beyond matters of criminal justice. It would be unfortunate if, by focusing on the criminal justice system, we lost sight of the profound social, cultural and economic problems which confront Aboriginal people". At the time of RCIADIC, there was no ability to compare Aboriginal with non-Aboriginal deaths in custody because the information was not available from state and territory governments. At that time, the greatest number of Aboriginal deaths in custody had occurred in Western Australia and Queensland, half of the victims were under 28 years old, and the most common cause of death was hanging. More detailed analysis was needed, for instance into the different factors operating in police custody compared with correctional facilities.
The term "death in custody" was defined in the RCIADIC report to include people under arrest or during the process of attempted detainment ; on remand, in prison or juvenile detention after sentencing, or attempting to escape from police or prison custody.
RCIADIC concluded that the deaths were not caused by deliberate killing by police and prison officers, but that "glaring deficiencies existed in the standard of care afforded to many of the deceased". It reported that "Aboriginal people died in custody at the same rate as non-Aboriginal prisoners, but they were far more likely to be in prison than non-Aboriginal people", and that child removal was a "significant precursor to these high rates of imprisonment". Many other historical and social factors were considered, showing a complex network of reasons as to why Aboriginal people were imprisoned at a higher rate.
A 2018 review by Deloitte commissioned in December 2017 by the then Indigenous Affairs Minister, Nigel Scullion, found that only 64% of the recommendations had been fully implemented. It reported that 14% were "mostly implemented", 16% were "partly implemented" and 6% not at all. It also found that monitoring of deaths in custody had decreased nationwide, and the quality of data on police custody was "an ongoing issue". Prison safety had increased, but more staff were needed for mental and other health issues of Aboriginal prisoners. Regular in-cell checks, particularly in police watch houses, were still deficient in some jurisdictions.
Disproportionate rates of imprisonment
and Torres Strait Islander people made up approximately 3.3% of the Australian population in the 2016 Australian census. As of June 2018, Indigenous Australians aged 18 years and over were approximately 2% of the total adult population, while Indigenous prisoners accounted for 28% of the adult prison population, meaning that Indigenous adults are 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous adults.The rate of imprisonment of Indigenous Australians almost doubled between 1991 and 2018.
Indigenous youth are 26 times more likely to be placed in detention. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in the June quarter of 2019 there was an average of 949 young people in detention per night: 90% of these were male, and 63% not yet sentenced. Indigenous youths made up 53% of the number. In the four years preceding June 2019, there were no clear trends shown in any of the statistical measures.
The Attorney-General for Australia commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission in October 2016 to examine the factors leading to the disproportionate numbers of Indigenous peoples in Australian prisons, and to look at ways of reforming legislation which might ameliorate this "national tragedy". The result of this in-depth enquiry was a report titled Pathways to Justice – Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, which was received by the Attorney-General in December 2017 and tabled in Parliament on 28 March 2018. The report made 13 recommendations, covering many aspects of the legal framework and police and justice procedures, including that non-payment of fines should not result in imprisonment.
Qualified improvement in death rate
Overall, the rate of Indigenous deaths in custody has reduced since 1991, as of 2020 lower than the rate of death of non-Indigenous people, which the AIC attributes to improved care by police and corrective services. However the rate of imprisonment of Indigenous people has climbed steeply, which is related to the higher number of deaths when compared with the 10 years examined by the RCIDIAC. Non-Indigenous people have died in custody in greater numbers and at a higher rate than Indigenous people, since 1991; however, with the much higher numbers of imprisonment of Indigenous people, there are more deaths as a proportion of their total population.Issues in WA
, John Quigley, said in June 2020 that there was "systematic discrimination" against Indigenous people in the Western Australian justice system. Statistically, Indigenous people were far more likely to be stopped and questioned by police than non-Indigenous, more likely to be charged if arrested by police and less likely to get bail. Imprisonment of Indigenous people in WA was 4.1 per cent, compared with 2.6 nationally. The number of Indigenous adults going to prison, and young people being held in detention was still increasing, although the rate of imprisonment had slowed. He said that legislative reforms were being planned. WA has a higher number of Aboriginal deaths in custody since 1991 than any other state or territory.On 17 June 2020 reforms to the legislation relating to jail sentences for unpaid fines, long a bone of contention, spurred on by the death of Ms Dhu in 2014 and finally introduced into Parliament in September 2019, was passed in WA. Between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019, 430 people spent time in custody for unpaid fines. Under the new legislation, most fine defaulters will do community service if they fail to pay, with imprisonment a last resort, by order of a magistrate only. The change was recommended by RCIADIC in 1991.
Data covering the period 2014–2024 showed that WA had the highest rate of Indigenous deaths in custody per capita.