How can Australia reduce Indigenous deaths in custody?

George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are the names at the heart of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Black lives that were tragically taken at the hands of white police officers. You know their names.

But what about Tanya Day, David Dungay Jr, and Rebecca Maher? They are names you are less likely to know, even though they are just three of the 434 Indigenous deaths that have happened in custody in Australia since 1991.

Looking at Indigenous deaths in custody as a proportion of their total population the statistics are shocking. Aboriginal Australian activist and Human Rights lawyer, Professor Megan Davis, says this isn’t the only problem. There’s also the issue of overrepresentation. A massive 27% of the national prison population are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander adults, whereas only 3% of Australia’s population are Indigenous.

Professor Davis says both overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples within Australia’s criminal justice system and black deaths in custody are finally being acknowledged in Australia thanks to the Black Lives Matter Movement.

“It {The BLM Movement] animated a very kind of visceral response of non-Indigenous Australians to matters of race here in this country. And that was interesting because it’s not often Australians protest,” says Professor Davis.

So, why did we see thousands of Australians get off the lounge and protest for the Black Lives Matter Movement back in June?

“I think the non-Indigenous response was absolutely in response to that terrible, harrowing footage of George Floyd. I mean you cannot see something like that and not want to express your fury in some way.

“People probably were walking under a kind of broader discursive notion of Aboriginal Rights. I think some Australians know that we haven’t done enough,” says Professor Davis.

While BLM protests in Australia were able to raise awareness to the institutional racism faced by Indigenous people, Professor Davis says

to address the problem with incarceration, police brutality and Indigenous deaths in custody there are two clear solutions, according to TheRoyal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths inCustody (1987).

“The first was to stop Aboriginal people from coming into contact with the criminal justice system all together.

“And then the second way is to create community justice mechanisms and other mechanisms to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aren’t treated unfairly through the legal system. That includes police accountability in terms of police brutality,” she says.

According to Professor Davis, Australia “hasn’t really nailed” the recommendations from TheRoyal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths inCustody, despite the document being published more than 30 years ago.

And if we wish to minimise indigenous deaths in custody, we need to start listening.