Chronic ill-health in Australia’s Aboriginal prison population

At the centre of the campaign has been federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough. Last week, after claiming rampant lawlessness in many Aboriginal communities, Brough insisted that before the government would consider spending money on Aboriginal health and education, “law and order” would have to be established and violent offenders jailed.

Referring to the 1991 Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody, Brough admitted that the jailing of young Aboriginal men would create “difficulties”, including the risk of suicide, but insisted that “political correctness” had to be put aside.

To the uninformed it may appear that Brough’s heavy-handedness has been a response to newly-discovered outrages against children. In fact, his recent comments amount to nothing but a restatement of longstanding government policy. It is precisely because Aboriginal communities have been starved of the most basic resources, such as decent jobs, education, health and housing, that violence and sexual and substance abuse have become so common. Any funds made available have been largely diverted into law and order.

Buried recently in the midst of calls for tougher measures, was a report from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) titled Undue Punishment? Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islanders in prison: An Unacceptable Reality. Released with little media comment, the report highlights the growing and disproportionate number of Aboriginal people in prison and their appalling overall health. Ongoing poverty, disadvantage and discrimination have led to a vast over-representation of Aboriginal people, in particular youth, in custody.

Presently Aboriginal Australians make up only 2.4 percent of the national population, but comprise 22 percent of the prison population—5,656 Aboriginal prisoners out of a total of 25,353. Between the year 2000 and 2004, the imprisonment rate for Aboriginal women increased by 25 percent and 11 percent for Aboriginal men. In 2002, there were 14 Aboriginal deaths in custody—8 in prisons and 6 in police custody. In 2005, an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander young person was 19 times more likely than a non-Aboriginal young person to be detained in a juvenile facility.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/abor-j12.shtml