George Floyd’s death and the US Black Lives Matter movement sparked extensive media attention. Why aren't Australian Indigenous deaths in custody getting the same amount of media coverage?
A documentary series aimed to spark national conversation about criminalising coercive control. However, it highlighted power imbalances in conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Report made over 200 directives about improving the health of people in prisons in its 339 recommendations in 1991. One of these recommendations included additional funding to provide better health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prison.
Yet, there are virtually no staff skilled in engaging with cultural protocols in health services in prisons. And current policies and procedures do little to extend cultural care to families when the death of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person in prison has occurred.
The royal commission and the United Nations recommend people in prisons have access to health care equivalent to what is available in the community. However, the system is still strained, as the multiple deaths of Aboriginal people in custody in recent months, inquests revealing gaps in health care, and a health report tabled to NSW Parliament make clear.
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As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, there appears to be little cause for celebration.
Since its final report was tabled in 1991, there have been more than 450 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have died in custody, and the Indigenous incarceration rate has also doubled from 14 per cent to about 28 per cent.
Guest: Dennis Eggington, a Nyoongar man, an adjunct professor at Curtin University and the Aboriginal Legal Service WA CEO
Producer: