Description

Aboriginal Deaths in Custody: A Continuing Systematic Abuse

This article demonstrates that the hundreds of recommendations from the 1991 Australian Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody have been ignored and thus failed to halt Aboriginal deaths in custody. The article examines five recent indigenous deaths in custody, demonstrating that the Royal Commission’s recommendations remain ignored, while ongoing problems of indigenous discrimination within the criminal justice system persist. The article also notes that over the last decade in Australia, more punitive approaches to law and order have combined with a move away from the recognition of indigenous rights, including the right to self-determination, ensuring that indigenous people remain grossly overrepresented in custody and, accordingly, deaths inside.

deaths in custody, indigenous deaths in custody, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, prisons; prisoners

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 33, No. 4 (2006): 37-51