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Prisons Are the Problem: A Re-Examination of Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Deaths in Custody

NCJ Number
179682
Journal
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology Volume: 32 Issue: 2 Dated: August 1999 Pages: 108-123
Author(s)
Richard W. Harding
Date Published
1999
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper examines factors in the high Aboriginal mortality rates in Australian prisons.
Abstract
The background to the establishment in 1987 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) was a belief that the defining risk characteristics of persons dying in custody was their Aboriginality. Australia's long history of violence and injustice toward its indigenous population underpinned the expectation that continuing racism in custodial situations was the principal driver of high Aboriginal mortality rates. On this basis, analysis and proposed solutions would focus on the specifics of Aboriginal custodial experience as well as broader issues of criminal justice system administration. This paper suggests that in the context of prison custody, equal or greater emphasis should have been placed on the nature of prison regimes and prisoner management generally, since they impact all prisoners. Rates of prison deaths have remained unacceptably high since the RCIADIC, in contrast to police custodial death rates that have markedly improved. A great deal was generally known about the epidemiology of prison custodial deaths before the work of the RCIADIC. Across-the-board implementation of this prior and subsequently acquired knowledge would arguably have made more effective impact on Aboriginal as well as non-Aboriginal deaths. The defining risk characteristic of prison mortality was, and still is, the nature of prison custodial regimes. 4 tables, 12 notes, and 26 references