page_title: Aboriginal deaths in custody
hierarchical_section_title: Aboriginal deaths in custody
caption_attribution_description: English: A protest held to commemorate the anniversary of Julieka Dhu's death in police custody
context_page_description: 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. As of 2020, 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.
context_section_description: 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 (RCIADIC).
  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. As of 2020, 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 (AIC). As Australian census and prison statistics include both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the counts have included both groups, as Indigenous Australians.
  Deaths have continued since 1991: between 1991 and June 2020 there have been at least 437 Indigenous deaths in custody (both prison and police). While the majority of deaths occurring in prison custody have been of natural causes (58%), hanging deaths accounted for 32%, but the latter have shown a marked decrease in recent years. Indigenous people are now less likely than non-Indigenous people to die in prison custody. Of deaths in police custody, the total between mid-1991 and mid-2016 was 146, with 47% attributed to accidental death (with most of these happening under police pursuit). 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 focussing on Aboriginal deaths in custody, accompanied by renewed media attention, were triggered by the death 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 (COAG) drafted targets to reduce Aboriginal custody rates by 2028.
caption: A protest calling for reform to prevent Aboriginal deaths in custody, Forrest Place, Perth, c. 2015.
exif: {}