by ray jackson, president, indigenous social justice association
in the halls of custodial academe, David Biles (see his article below) is quite well known but that does not detract from those outside those halls being somewhat puzzled by his research findings from time to time.
this finding of course is one of those times.
as i saw on a social blog, the title perhaps more honestly should say that 'gaol is good for aborigines.' for that is specifically his argument.
today is the 19th anniversary of the tabling of the royal commission recommendations and, i believe, this article is indicative of seeing things with different eyes. white eyes and black eyes. also academic eyes and non-academic eyes. of forests and trees perhaps.
we begin with that oft repeated platitude that our people were no more likely to die in custody, whether police or gaol cell doesn't matter, than non-aborigines. i have had much trouble with this excuse, as i see it, since it was first made public some years ago.
i know enough about statistics that given the time and the commitment you can prove any argument you wish to put. and having proved your argument you can then take other statistics to prove that you were wrong previously. economists and governments do so all the time.
the same as surveys, you can get any result you want by asking the right biased questions.
upon contemplation, i would agree with that except that i would have a different interpretation of why that outcome could be argued. taking heed of the different gaol populations between white and black and accepting the chaotic rules of chance we then need to add into the mix our general health (the 17 year gap and other social problems) and perhaps that statement could be made.
but that is not why the royal commission was called for or set up.
as i have said just recently, the death in roebourne, wa, in september 1983 of 16 year old john pat led to agitation from several aboriginal groups, but specifically the committee to defend black rights, to call for a royal commission into black deaths in custody. not just to look at the numbers but more importantly how and who was responsible for those deaths.
of course the quantum of our deaths was important but the need to know was on the why and the who. we never said that our people were dying at a greater rate than non-aboriginals in the custodial system. i certainly have seen no such argument from our people. we wanted to know why and by whom. were our children, our men and women being purposely killed by the police, gaol and custodial health officers? that was the real question.
had we wanted to just argue the numbers i'm quite sure we could have done so anyway. from 1 january 1980 to 31 may 1989 the commissioners looked at the following deaths:-
nsw 15, vic 3, qld 26, wa 32, sa 12, tas 1, nt 9.
what was the difference of vic and tas when looking to qld and wa? did the lower states have a better or less deadly system than the higher two states? we'll never know because the commissioners became distracted. i have reservations on accepting the nt figures being accurate. i believe they would have been much higher.
the police, the gaols, custodial health and the juvenile justice departments fought against any investigation at all. the unions covering these areas went absolutely ballistic. some unknown number of their members were at risk and as we have seen in qld recently the police union will fight to the death for their members even when they are patently guilty of whatever crime.
our people wanted to know who and why, the government/union forces wanted no part of the commission. the unions let it be known that they would direct their members not to participate unless the focus of the deaths was removed from their members to a more social investigation of why the victims were in gaol or police custody to begin with.
the commissioners and the governments agreed. at the close of the commission the results were no custodial officer was guilty of anything whilst the 99 families were guilty of not raising their loved ones to the social standards of the day. some wink and a nod to the underlying events such as being of the stolen generations was given some consideration but that is all. the commissioners did not have it within their powers to find against the racist governments and society's racist practices. not in their jurisdiction. blame the victims and their families.
it is a real pity that all the deaths in custody of both black and white were not compared. what we would have found is the number of state wards that finished up in gaol thanks to the treatment of the dept. of community service and juvenile justice. we would know their death numbers also. we would have learnt of the other social outcast groups that were used and abused by an uncaring society. we care for our people in the system and what happens to them. it is to my eternal amazement that white society, with very few exceptions, just does not care. obviously a hangover from the invasion days. please remember it was not always fashionable to have convict ancestry. or aboriginal for that matter.
david's foray into the realm of auto-eroticism by the performance of sexual asphyxia is certainly new to me. i know that such acts exists because i have read reports of them but never in a custodial system. is this just the scream of a frustrated research or a serious charge? over 20 years i wandered around in and out of the nsw gaols and nary a whisper of this type of behaviour. i was told who was pairing with who and spoke to several inmates brave enough to say they had been raped, one by a prison officer, but with that one exception never wanted to press charges.
i know of inmates who have suicided because of the unwanted sexual attention. i have heard coroners express the opinion that an inmate died accidentally because they did not really wish to hang themselves but did anyway. i have trouble with that coronial decision also. to me it takes away somewhat the gaolers duty of care.
before i could even begin to accept david's point i would need further details and information. i just cannot accept it. the psychological make-up of such characters just does not match the people i met in the gaols. mind you, when one considers the white side of the gaols, i'll leave it to you to decide for yourself.
the $40 million was a legal feast and the $400 million was spent by the governments in their annual reports, by the police building state-of-the-art police stations, by the police commissioners and others on a 2 week junket at alice springs whilst considering the rc recommendations -- they rejected them totally, amongst other frenzied feedings.
in 1997, after winning office, howard called for death in custody summits at state/territory and federal levels. little notice was given and proper representation was not possible. we met in sydney and over the day came up with some recommendations and delegates, of which i was one, to the federal summit in canberra. from across australia we met over 2 days and decided on national recommendations to go to a ministerial meeting with our national delegates. i was not one of them.
the top meeting was held, the delegates put our recommendations and a final report came down some months later. the secret english bunyip had reinvented every recommendation to nothing but a list of motherhood statements, ie. meaning nothing.
howard informed us and everyone else that the dollars were all spent and that the governments no longer had to make annual reports on the implementation of the rc recommendations. the cheers from the state houses was audible, no more obfuscation required. only our mobs kept them alive and continued to argue for them,
relative to understanding the rc recommendations, david, most of the public didn't care or by the system practioners who didn't want to know. only our inmates, our legal services and other semi-legal bodies and community organisations like the watch committee/isja and others fought for them in the courts, the gaols, the juvenile centres and the police cells. my association still does as do some others.
his main point, as i see it, is that more deaths in custody occur outside of gaol as happens within. i need to research this to better understand what he is saying. his basic point of access to drugs, alcohol and other vices creating a higher risk can be accepted but it comes down to numbers, the different in/out populations among other factors to be considered. the only argument here surely is where does the systems duty of care start and finish. to extrapolate from that that gaol is safer is ludicrous and indefensible. hopefully more on this later.
deaths in custody continue to occur with sickening regularity, whether in gaol or police cell or some other method. since the reporting requirements were shut down in 1998 the figures have become very rubbery due to the police nationally questioning the inclusion of some deaths, especially high speed car pursuits that are invariably fiddled as to the level of police involvement at the point of crash and death.
initially the police deaths in custody became lower because they were a lot quicker in handing their detainees over to corrective services. this of course increased their number of deaths. this has now settled out whereby police deaths have again risen. however for 2009/10 gaol deaths have once more surged. when one looks at the cases over the last couple of years one sees a distinct rise in deaths due to lack of duty of care by custodial health.
this has become a serious issue that must be seriously investigated and not swept under the carpet. again.
and, to finish, of course more non-aboriginal deaths happen than aboriginal deaths due to the gaol populations. whites are the bulk of the system (perhaps that should be investigated as to why and give us a rest). the ratio of deaths is i think about 10:1 or even more.
nsw figures are now hidden anyway by the woodham/costa cone of silence apropos to the public, including the death in custody families, not having the right to know.
so much for statistics.
fkj
Aborigines less likely to die in prison than others
* David Biles
* From: The Australian
* April 15, 2010 12:00AM
RECENT media coverage of the legal proceedings relating to the death of Cameron
(also known as Mulrunji) Doomadgee at the Palm Island police station in November
2004 has inevitably raised a number of questions about the phenomena of deaths in
custody in general.
This case and several others that have been mentioned recently might have caused
us to believe that deaths in custody were continuing to occur at a similar rate to that
established by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which sat
from late 1987 to early 1991 and examined 99 cases that occurred between 1980
and 1989. During that decade data were collected on non-Aboriginal as well as
Aboriginal deaths that occurred in police custody and in Australian prisons, even
though the former were not subjected to close scrutiny.
This preliminary data collection exercise found quite unexpectedly that Aboriginal
people in both police custody and in prison were no more likely to die than non-
Aboriginal people in either form of custody.
That finding prompted some heated discussion among the royal commission staff,
because it indicated that the basic assumption underlying the establishment of the
royal commission was misconceived.
Some staff members suggested that what was needed was either an investigation of
all deaths in custody, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, or the focus of the inquiry
should be the over-representation of Aboriginal people in both forms of custody.
The fact that neither of these options was considered was a disappointment to some
staff members, but towards the end of the inquiry there was greater emphasis
placed on the reasons why so many Aboriginal people were behind bars in the first
place. Another cause of criticism of the royal commission was the fact that even
though many police and prison officers were found to be at fault in performing their
duties, none of their shortcomings was found to be sufficiently serious to justify the
laying of criminal charges.
That fact alone places the Doomadgee case in a different category as the senior
sergeant-in-charge of the Palm Island police station, Chris Hurley, was subsequently
charged with manslaughter and acquitted by a
Supreme Court jury in Townsville in June 2007.
That may not be the end of the matter, however, as it is assumed by many people
close to the case that Hurley may at some stage face a civil charge, where the
standard of proof will be on the balance of probability rather than beyond reasonable
doubt as is required in criminal cases.
A further criticism of the royal commission was the fact that in its detailed
examination of the 99 cases it never gave serious consideration to the possibility
that at least some of the cases of apparent suicide by hanging could have been
accidental deaths due to the practice known as sexual asphyxia.
It is possible that some of the legal staff, as well as some of the commissioners, had
no knowledge of this subject, or if they did they may have taken the view, quite
reasonably, that any public mention of this behaviour may have encouraged others
to imitate it. One can only speculate that either ignorance, prudence or coyness
prevented this subject from even being considered.
The royal commission cost more than $40 million, and a further $400 million to
implement most of its recommendations.
It was the subject of intense media interest, both internationally and nationally, while
its hearings were being held, but many of its general findings were never fully
understood by the public, or by many practitioners working in criminal justice.
This may have been due to the fact that its reports were nearly always very long, to
the point that it is doubtful if any individual can honestly claim to have read every
word that the royal commission published.
For example, another of the unexpected findings of the research undertaken by the
royal commission was the fact that convicted offenders serving non-custodial
sentences such as probation, community service orders or parole were much more
likely to die while serving those orders than were offenders serving prison
sentences.
In other words, imprisonment actually reduces the probability of death.
This should not be particularly surprising when one considers the high-risk lifestyle
lived by many of those involved in crime.
The risks include taking too many drugs, drinking too much alcohol, smoking too
much, driving too fast and generally living a chaotic life.
For all its negative features, prison does at least provide three meals a day, and
reduces (even if it does not entirely eliminate) the consumption of drugs.
It also provides basic medical care and some degree of social support.
For a host of economic and humanitarian reasons, the aim must always be to keep
the number of people in prison to an absolute minimum so that it is only used as a
last resort, but the consequences of imprisonment are not always totally negative.
What has happened to deaths in custody since the conclusion of the royal
commission? The answer is a mixed one.
Deaths in police custody have reduced significantly, while the opposite has been the
case with prisons.
The improvement in the police custody deaths is almost certainly due to police
forces across Australia taking the job of looking after Aboriginal detainees more
seriously (by, for example, encouraging Aboriginal elders to stay with detainees)
and, perhaps more importantly, making an effort to get Aboriginal detainees out on
bail or transferred to prison as soon as possible.
On the prison side of the equation, there has been a massive increase in both
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal deaths and this is totally the result of a similar
increase in prison numbers that has occurred in the last 20 years. Over that period
the total daily average number of prisoners in Australia has more than doubled from
fewer than 14,000 in 1990 to very nearly 29,000 today.
Also, to our national shame, Aboriginal adults who comprise almost exactly 2 per
cent of the total adult population now make up over 25 per cent of our prison
population.
It is still the case, however, that non-Aboriginal prisoners are more likely to die than
Aboriginal prisoners.
David Biles is a consultant criminologist and was formerly a professorial associate at
Charles Sturt University and before that was head of research with the Royal
Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Websites with coverage of Indigenous struggle:
http://www.isis.aust.com/theblock/
http://jintajungu.ghostchild.com/
http://active.org.au/sydney/
http://www.REDWatch.org.au/
To visit the Socialist Alliance website, click on:
http://www.Socialist-Alliance.org/