Australia's Highest Indigenous Deaths in Custody (Again)
The BBC headline screams 'Indigenous deaths in custody hit record high in Australia,' noting 33 of 113 deaths between July and June were Indigenous. (BBC World) A Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody delivered 339 recommendations in 1991. Thirty-three years later, we are still counting new 'record highs.' This isn't a glitch; it’s a feature of a system that disproportionately
criminalizes Indigenous Australians, who make up 3.8% of the population but 32% of the prison population. The recommendations are simply ignored year after year. One might wonder, how many ignored reports does it take before we call it policy?