Detention from the age of 10, repeated racist behavior are among the facts qualified as “national shame” by Indigenous leaders.
More than 450 indigenous people have died in prison since the report, in 1991, of the royal commission on the deaths of indigenous people in detention, in particular five since the beginning of March.
Anger roars at this increasingly heavy toll and in the absence of any conviction of police or prison officers in the context of these deaths.
Nioka Chatfield is not recovering from the loss of Tane, her 22-year-old son, found unconscious in his cell while in pre-trial detention. He died in hospital.
“It is a painful and tragic experience that we Australian Aborigines have to endure”, she testified to AFP. “And this has been going on ever since Captain Cook landed here. Our grandmothers were fleeing from the mounted policemen. Now our children are fleeing from the (police) cars even though they didn’t do anything.”
The 1991 survey revealed that members of the indigenous community, proportionally more numerous in detention, were more likely to die while in prison.
System victim
The aborigines and the natives of the Strait of Torres then represented a little more than 14% of the adult prisoners.
Since then, that figure has nearly doubled to 29% as indigenous people make up just 3% of Australia’s population, according to official figures.
The situation is much worse for the children of the indigenous community, who represent approximately 65% of the youth in detention.
Many of these deaths are attributed to pre-existing health conditions, self-harm or improper medical care.
An official investigation concluded last year that Tane Chatfield, who suffered from depression and took drugs, had committed suicide.
But in the eyes of his family, this young dad was a victim of the system.
Nioka Chatfield promised his dying son that he would do everything to ensure that he did not die for nothing.
About fifteen families who have lost a loved one are calling for major reforms of the penal system.
They call for the creation of an independent body to investigate these deaths, an end to ill-treatment and an increase in the age of criminal responsibility, 14 years instead of 10.
Their demands are supported by indigenous communities and associations in charge of judicial reform. France, Canada and Germany urged Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, in line with UN recommendations. However, work on this issue was halted last year.
“National shame”
Opposition Senator Patrick Dodson, an indigenous person, called the indigenous death toll as “national shame“. “Only national will and fundamental political changes will prevent this crisis”, he wrote on Twitter.
According to a report produced in 2018 by Deloitte for the Prime Minister’s office, 35% of the 339 recommendations of the royal commission, including the consideration of the damage suffered by the natives, have not yet been fully implemented.
Thalia Anthony, a law professor at the University of Technology in Sydney, nevertheless believes that these reforms “could have saved lives”.
The government seems deaf to these calls and has even recently proposed tougher bail laws for young people to fight the rise in crime.
Indigenous children are 17 times more often incarcerated than other children, and the Indigenous organization “Change the Record” called these new proposals “dangerous”.
The Australian government, which admits failures, has pledged to reduce the incarceration rate for Indigenous adults by 15% and youth detention rates by 30% by 2031.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt, the first indigenous member of a government, called on “all levels of government” to work together to reduce the number of indigenous people coming into contact with the justice system.
For many activists, including Colin, Tane Chatfield’s father, the root of the problem is the racism that persists in Australian society. “If we don’t get rid of racism, we won’t get rid of deaths in custody.”
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