Indigenous jail deaths ‘a scandal’, says Pat Dodson

Australia is on the brink of another Royal Commission into the imprisonment of Aboriginal people as frustration builds after the recent deaths in custody of four Aboriginal people, senator Patrick Dodson said on Friday.

Labor senator Pat Dodson. Picture: AAP

Australia is on the brink of another Royal Commission into the imprisonment of Aboriginal people as frustration builds over a blowout in incarceration rates and the recent deaths in custody of four Aboriginal people in less than three weeks, senator Patrick Dodson said on Friday.

Senator Dodson, a commissioner for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody announced in 1987, said in senate estimates on Friday that the continued deaths of Indigenous people in Australian prisons and watch houses was a scandal.

The Labor Senator from the Kimberley in Western Australia’s far north, was aghast that on March 5, an Indigenous woman was found dead in a cell at Silverwater Women’s Prison. She is thought to have taken her own life using a hanging point in her cell. She died on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the final report of the Royal Commission that recommended the removal of such hanging points from all cells.

“Aboriginal people are frustrated to the back teeth about the number of deaths that are occurring,” Senator Dodson said.

Data from the Australian Institute of Criminology shows the rates at which Indigenous people die in jail has more than halved since the Royal Commission, and has been consistently lower than the death rate of non-Indigenous prisoners for more than a decade. In 2018-19, the most recently-published figures, there were 89 deaths in custody in Australia. Of those, 16 were Indigenous prisoners and 73 non-Indigenous prisoners. Overall, however, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are at greater risk of dying in custody than non-Indigenous Australians because the likelihood of being arrested, detained or sentenced are disproportionately much higher.

Senator Dodson said immediate action was required to address Indigenous incarceration rates that had “blown out to glory” in the past three decades.

When the Royal Commission published its final report in 1991, Indigenous people made up about 14 per cent of Australia’s prison population. Now, close to 30 per cent of Australian prisoners are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The new national agreement on Closing the Gap includes a commitment by all states, territories and the Commonwealth government to lower the number and rate at which Indigenous adults and children go to jail. The work is being done in a partnership with about 50 peak Indigenous organisations including the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, which recently met Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt to discuss the incarceration crisis.

On Friday, Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker told senate estimates: “The lives of every person through our justice system are important, no matter what the colour of their skin is, They are living human beings, they are Australians and they matter.”

Anzac Sullivan, 37, is the most recent known Indigenous Australian to die in custody. Police say he ran away when they went to a home in the town of Broken Hill to execute an outstanding warrant about 8am on March 18. He suffered “a medical episode” and patrolling officers tried to revive him with CPR, according to a police statement. Under New South Wales law, Mr Sullivan’s death can be considered a death in custody though he was not under arrest at the time.