WA man dies in custody at Wyndham work camp

A 29-year-old Aboriginal male prisoner has been found dead at a Department of Justice work camp in WA’s Wyndham.

WA Attorney-General John Quigley. Picture: AAP

A 29-year-old Aboriginal male prisoner has been found dead at a Department of Justice work camp in Wyndham, in northern Western Australia.

The man died on Thursday but his death was only reported on Friday. It will be treated as a death in custody, a department spokeswoman said.

“The man was found unresponsive yesterday morning and attempts by Corrective Services staff to revive him were unsuccessful.” The Department of Justice is also conducting an internal review into the management of the man during his time in custody.

The WA Police Force is investigating the death which will be subject to a coronial inquest.

In early October, a new custody notification service aimed at reducing deaths in custody was rolled out across the state. It requires police who take an indigenous person into custody for any reason to call a 24-hour hotline staffed by the Aboriginal Legal Service.

Attorney-General John Quigley said the service in the intervening period had already receive 517 reports by police, “the highest in the country”. He said Western Australia’s male prison population was 38.5 per cent Aboriginal, despite Aboriginal men making up 2.2 per cent of the population.

The man was already serving a sentence, and the circumstances of his death are unknown.

Greens MP Robin Chapple said news of the man’s death was very disappointing.

“Whether it is the case of Ms Dhu, Ms Clarke who was shot by police in Geraldton or Mr Walker in Yuendumu, it’s another death in a long-running saga of mismanagement of indigenous prisoners in a system already identified as flawed,” he said.

He called for an urgent review of incarceration rates, and the implementation of all 300 recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.