Today marks the 35th anniversary of the final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC). This landmark report, which investigated 99 deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australian prisons included 339 critical recommendations for reform.
Since the findings were released in 1991, 630 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have died in custody, this is a national crisis and yet we hear silence from all levels of government across the country. The numbers of Aboriginal people dying in custody has increased recently, with the NSW State Coroner describing the highest numbers of Aboriginal people dying in custody ever in a single year as “profoundly distressing”, in the same period the rate for non-Indigenous people dying in custody reduced by over 12 per cent.
There have been numerous inquiries, coronial inquests and hundreds of recommendations that continually identify the systemic failures which lead to deaths in custody of our people, and yet remain unimplemented, putting lives at imminent risk.
Racist policing practices, unsafe prison conditions, entrenched racism and discrimination in policies and practices across the carceral system risk Aboriginal lives on a daily basis. Our people are over policed, over surveilled and over incarcerated. Victoria has continued to dismantle principles of justice, cut funding to non-carceral programs, legislate impossible bail tests, resulting in mass incarceration, something that this government consistently celebrates.
There is a lack of accountability, with only one police officer ever been held criminally responsible for their role in the death of an Aboriginal person in their care and custody. Our people do not die in custody at such a disproportionate rate to non-Indigenous people because of unique or individual circumstances, they do so because their needs are ignored, they are not believed and belittled in their cries for help, this kind of racism is ingrained.
VALS, the Aboriginal Justice Caucus (AJC), Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations, the legal sector, academics and other allies have long called for systemic and transformational reform. We only need to look to the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s significant and substantial findings and recommendations which largely remain unanswered and unimplemented by the Victorian government as yet another example of inaction.
The AJC’s Looking Back, Moving Forward, examined how Victoria has responded to the 339 recommendations made by the RCIADIC, which identified persistent systemic issues long raised by our communities. The significant project centres community voices and advocacy, recognising the importance of learning from the past to drive meaningful, lasting justice reform. The project will soon be launched.
VALS will continue to advocate for self-determined justice approaches, we will continue to staunchly stand alongside families who have lost loved ones.
Our lives matter.
No Justice, No Peace.
Quotes Attributable to Nerita Waight, CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service:
“The colonial project to subjugate, control and police our children, young people, families and communities continue. The laws and policies of this government are inherently racist, and are costing lives.”
“Only last week VALS was supporting the family of proud Noongar man Jeffrey Winmar during the coronial inquest into his death in police custody. They are still mourning his death, and this family had to withstand more trauma and suffering due to the culturally unsafe coronial process.”
“The state system of oppression and control is killing our people. Only today the Victorian Opposition Leader has announced if elected, she will implement laws that will see more of our young people locked up. Prisons are inherently unsafe. Our children deserve futures, not jail cells. Shame on this government for its single minded, ill-informed and inhumane approach to community safety. Our communities deserve to be safe.“
“All levels of government have become too experienced at dodging responsibility for the systemic racism and entrenched inequality in government agencies, especially police and corrections, that continue to kill our people. We see this in coronial inquests all the time. Nginma Ngainga Wara will help to hold governments to account. Fundamentally we know that racism is increasing against Aboriginal people, both systemic and interpersonal, all enabled and empowered by governments. It’s becoming harder and harder to call it out, to hold those responsible accountable, to seek systemic reform. We hope the inquiry into racism helps shed light on this, on what enables the state to keep killing us, and get away with it.”