Why Is the Rate of Black Deaths in Custody So High?

More than 30 years ago, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADC) was set up to investigate black deaths in custody, but in those three decades, very little has changed. Although the recommendations in the report continue to influence Australian social and criminal justice policy, many of the commission’s 339 recommendations have yet to be implemented.

Today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are incarcerated at 13 times the rate of non-Indigenous people. Since the RCIADC, nearly 500 Indigenous people have died in police custody.

In this episode of ‘What Happens Next?’, host Dr Susan Carland is joined by Monash University pro vice-chancellor (Indigenous) and head of its William Cooper Institute, Jacinta Elston; criminologist Kate Burns; and Meena Singh, legal director of the Human Rights Law Centre.

These experts explain what we learned from the RCIADC inquiry, and why Indigenous incarceration rates remain so high in Australia. We’ll also learn what society could look like if we fail to re-imagine our policing and justice systems.

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