Deaths in custody in Australia: a quantitative analysis of coroners' reports

• Published in: Current issues in criminal justice Vol. 31; no. 2; pp. 143 - 163
• Main Authors: Walsh, Tamara, Counter, Angelene
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 03.04.2019
• Subjects: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; Aboriginal Australians; Australia; Australia. Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody; Causes; corrections; Criminal law; Death; death in custody; police; prison; Prisoners; Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody; Social conditions; AUSTRALIA
• ISSN: 1034-5329; 2206-9542
• DOI: 10.1080/10345329.2019.1603831

This paper reports on a large-scale documentary analysis of all publicly available coroners' reports on deaths in custody released between 1991 and 2016. The research was undertaken to mark 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. We collected quantitative data from 505 reports including characteristics of deceased persons, causes of death, type of custody and the state or territory in which they died. We found that Australian states and territories differ substantially in their reporting practices, and official information on deaths in custody remains difficult to access. Our results indicate trends that require further research. For example, despite the significant increases in the Indigenous and female prison populations in recent years, women and Indigenous people were under-represented amongst our sample of deaths in custody. We found that they were more likely to have died in police custody than in prisons. We also found that indigenous status was often not reported by coroners.