Deaths in custody

[Yenn]

I see on the news today that the old chestnut of Aboriginal deaths in custody has come up again.

I would like to know why we don't have a white lives matter campaign against non indiginous deaths in custody.

Looking at the figures published since the Royal commission I don't think there was one year when aboriginal deaths exceded non indiginous deaths, in fact even though the indiginous population is far less percentage than non indiginous, the non indiginous deaths exceed indiginous in proportion to their numbers.

No doubt all this is brought on us by the deaths in USA, which are abominable and i would appear will continue to be so.

We have a popular uprising here based on false facts and what should be happening is questioning about total deaths, not just indiginous deaths.

We could also have a look at why the indiginous prison population is so much higher in proportion to their actual numbers.

There seems to be a push to not imprison indiginous people because they are over represented, but why are they over represented? Could it be that they commit more crimes per head of population or are they targeted by the police? Could it be a bit of both?

Certainly there seems to be a crime spree in Townsville, where there have been vigilantes trying to stop it and that resulted in a death.

It seems to me that keeping criminals out of jail because they are indiginous will not work, it only appears to encourage crime.

[old man emu]

If you look at the types of crimes indigenous (that's wrong).  If you look at the types of crimes people whose ethnic group is known as the First People you would find that their crimes are mainly opportunistic (robbery, assault, domestic murder). If you compare those to other ethnic groups, those other groups would show more, as well as the basic crimes, more complexity (car rebirthing, drug rings, fraud, extortion). I would put that down to firstly social education. Then "academic" education which prevents being able to improve economic standing. Also their area of  criminal activity is usually restricted to their traditional homelands. They don't go nationwide or international. Then there's the old "Justice is only for the rich", which can hardly be denied by any ethnic group.

 

Until we ditch this idea that the First Peoples are our dark-skinned children and show them the respect for their culture and use their culture and language to allow them to see the similarities between the two cultures, then we will never bring improvement to both sides. We non- First People have a lot to learn about managing this continent's environment, and from that knowledge, we might be able to take commercial advantage of it, which is a trait of non-First People.

[facthunter]

Per capita Indigenous people have a much higher rate of incarceration  by far. Many of those are for things like non payment of fines. That's pretty outrageous in principle.. A bit like fining people for begging. They wouldn't be begging if they could afford fines. Nev

[old man emu]

32 minutes ago, facthunter said:

A bit like fining people for begging. They wouldn't be begging if they could afford fines. Nev

And one portion of the population would not to beg and steal if the major portion wasn't so self-centred and supremist that it does not respect another culture and work with it to make something that is better than the sum of its parts.

[gareth lacey]

2014 non indigenous people died in custody in the same period , are their deaths not a worry to us as well?

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by gareth lacey

[facthunter]

Of course they are but the disproportionate nature and the fact it's getting worse is the issue. Nev

[gareth lacey]

But no one is asking for a royal commission into these deaths , indigenous or not they should all be questioned but they are not, seems that its only the colour of your skin that matters, overtones of being racist the other way maybe.

 

[facthunter]

We'd have to go a Bl@@dy long way before that was ever the case... Nev

[pmccarthy]

The rate of indigeneous deaths per incarcerated person per year is substantially lower than non-indigenous.

[facthunter]

How is that a fact? It's not what I've heard and why would it be so.? Because they are looked after better?  I suggest THAT is a "cooked "statistic. with manipulated figures. Think about how it reads.  Nev

[nomadpete]

Bottom line I see is this.....

The CURRENT indigenous culture is not good for indigenous people. Neither health wise nor psychologically.

 

A possible reason might be that they collectively generally have abandoned their traditional culture and punitive responsibilities, in favor of the white feller culture with all its benefits (that we see), but have not accepted the personal responsibilities that most of us accept as being a condition of our benefits.

 

Allow that there have now been multiple generations for them to identify a need to adapt to the new environment.

 

 

One possible solution might be for those who feel disenfranchised to look at the situation and figure out how to live better within this changing environment. And then adapt to it.

 

Before anyone says nobody should be expected to change, just ask yourself, ' How many times in my life have I changed, adapted, to the changing world, just to pay my bills and feed my kids?'.

[old man emu]

Every death in custody, from a person fleeing apprehension by police (car chases) to death whilst in the custody of a Crown agency is subject to a Coronial Inquest. There would have even been one into Ivan Milat's death, even though it is well known that he was a victim of a terminal illness. 

 

If a pillar of society suddenly dropped dead from a heart attack, that death would require an Inquest if the person had not seen a doctor within the previous six months. If the person was under the continuing care of a doctor for a heart condition, then the doctor would certify cause of death and the Coroner would issue a death certificate indicating "natural causes". You can be sure that sine the prison population is a cross section of the general population's health, then there are many "natural causes deaths". But these are still included in the "Deaths in Custody" stats. 

[pmccarthy]

The Australian Institute of Criminology provides the data on Indigenous deaths in custody. Their latest report covers the year of 2018-2019: https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sr/sr31

 

Indigenous people are incarcerated at a high rate compared to their population, but on a per-100 prisoner rate Indigenous people were 43% less likely to die in prison than non-Indigenous people in 2018-19 (0.13 deaths per 100 vs. 0.23 deaths per 100, pg.4) .

 

Death rates of Indigenous prisoners have been consistently lower than the death rates of non-Indigenous prisoners since 2003–04 (pg.4). 85% of Indigenous deaths in prison custody were of natural causes (pg.6).

 

Indigenous persons make up 28% of the prison population but account for 18% of deaths in prison custody (pg.3).

[Marty_d]

Regardless of ethnicity, prison should be a last resort.  In 2017/18 it cost $302 per day per prisoner, which equates to $110,000 per annum for every person in jail.

Obviously for serious crimes there should be commensurate prison time.  But for non-serious crime there should be other ways to correct the offending behaviour, and in the context of indigenous people I believe there have been some very successful programs where the community themselves rehabilitate offenders.

 

[old man emu]

7 hours ago, Marty_d said:

in the context of indigenous people I believe there have been some very successful programs where the community themselves rehabilitate offenders.

And before their communities were overwhelmed by European culture, that's exactly what happened. In fact, before the Industrial Revolution, that's pretty much what European communities did. 

 

The Justice system has ceased to work the community it is supposed to work for, and now demands that the community work for it.

[onetrack]

The problem is the largest number of todays criminals who possess Aboriginal lineage, don't belong to any "Aboriginal community".

 

They're urban Aborigines, some with as little as a couple of percent Aboriginal blood, and they have little knowledge of pre-European Aboriginal culture, and no respect for tribal elders.

[facthunter]

Do you think that YOU as a presumably anglo classification person have the same opportunity to be a normal member of society as those who look aboriginal. Ie do you think they are not actively discriminated against much as women are in some places still. ? A lot of crime is social disadvantage related. IF you were starving would you  steal to feed your self?  Plenty of people suffer huge discrimination in the current world. Nev

[old man emu]

Yeah. Try being a hetero, white, married, over-50 year-old male.

[octave]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

Yeah. Try being a hetero, white, married, over-50 year-old male.

Well that describes me precisely. Either I have had a run of good luck or I am more skilled at constructing a successful and happy life. The notion that people in this category are the downtrodden  is ludicrous.

[facthunter]

We'd have to go a long way before that's the case.. I admire the courage of many who come out and they don't have an easy run. I don't feel threatened by considering people to have the right to be different because they ARE and there's always been this situation existing through all of history. The ACL behave awfully. I'd rather listen to the Anglican minister in Gosford or the current Pope..  Live and let live is close to what I accept. I talk to women as if they are actually people, not just sex objects.. Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

I sure agree that prison is over-used. And expensive.

I would " sentence" aborigines to a long walkabout instead.

And I would use prison a lot less on whitefellers. The only reason for locking somebody up should be that you have reason to be scared of what they might do on the loose.

When I was a kid, there was this batty old lady in Alice Springs called Olive Pink. She used to go to the court and give the judge a lecture on aboriginal culture. Nowadays she is almost a saint, and I am angry that nobody told me about her in the 1950's.

[Yenn]

It seems to boil down to the indigenous people getting more convictions than the rest of us. they may be for things like non payment of fines, but what were the fines for and if they are not paid, do we just say too bad and forget it?

Could we have a small part of the population who keep getting convicted and refusing to pay fines, because they an get away with it?

[spacesailor]

The lower class of People cop more than the upper class, because they can't afford those high price lawyers to get them off a simple misdemeanour.

The sudden high rate of traffic offences are a point in view .  THREE secret speed Camerer's in ONE street of Windsor, tells a story of targeting the low social economic area.

 Record revenue this month equals the last twelve months !.

Got me too. Liverpool. lights changed to orange when proceeding car half way over the line, giving me ONE second to Think about stopping. I didn't & got flashed.

another $ 200 for the revenuers. and the points on my licence.

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Don't talk about CLASS Spacey and certainly don't equate it with being wealthy. Certainly ordinary people have really NO access to Law and a fine may mean eviction to a pensioner and is NOTHING to a wealthy person. Nev

[spacesailor]

LHave you Ever heard of more than one secret speed camera in one street !, as happened in Windsor.

I saw the photo,s on facebuk.

Has to be targeting the department of social houseing mob.

Do They Ever have a secret speed camera in Pymble ,?

spacesailor