imprisonment

Hepatitis C is three times higher and rising in Indigenous populations. The worsening problem is mainly due to higher rates of unsafe drug injecting and possibly higher rates of incarceration, where the prevalence of intravenous drug use is much higher among Indigenous prisoners, according to multiple studies. First Nations people need accessible and affordable health care and Community Controlled Health Services have proven time and time again to be the best model for treatment, Lisa Briggs, CEO of Naccho said.

Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last month show a 10 percent jump in the number of people in Australian prisons, bringing the prison population to a 10 year high.

The Human Rights Law Centre’s Senior Lawyer, Ruth Barson, said the trend of locking up more and more people is alarming, particularly given there are cheaper and more effective ways to keep the community safe.

A new report says Mental health services for Aboriginal Australians are "both inadequate and inappropriate", and immediate changes are needed to address growing rates of suicide, depression and other mental health issues among Indigenous youth. The report also highlighted several shortcomings in efforts to improve mental health among Indigenous Australians and cited "dramatic" increases in recent years in Indigenous rates of youth suicide, anxiety and depression and other related illnesses.

As protesters rallied in Perth, South Hedland and Geraldton to demand answers over the death of a 22-year-old Aboriginal woman in police custody in August.
Charmaine Green, who attended the rally in Geraldton announced that a 31-year-old Aboriginal man has died in a Perth prison. An internal police investigation is underway into Ms Dhu's death but their are calls for an independent inquiry as well as strategies to help avoid deaths in custody.

As elections loom in Victoria and New South Wales, their governments' focus on tough law-and-order policies and prison populations are beyond capacity, but reports state that the crime statistics in these states are falling. A lot of people will shrug their shoulders and wonder what the fuss is about. People who commit crimes go to prison and this makes the community safer. What they fail to consider is the very real downside: a bigger drain on the public purse and a bad social outcome.

In a situation where there is just too much raw evidence against the Police who brutally pack attacked a man in the Ballina lock-up, there has finally been some charges laid against 4 police officers, but the issue has the massive task of getting past the pro-establishment court system, that is well known for watering down abuses against our First Nations people.
All four entered not guilty pleas and waived their right to a committal hearing and two more are due to appear in the Downing Centre Local Court.

It takes a unique country to name a century-long former internment camp as its favourite holiday destination. Such a country would either have to be one with rather macabre fascinations or a genuine interest in acknowledging historical injustices as a way of moving towards a better future. Or it could just be Australia.

The hundreds of Aboriginal men buried in unmarked graves probably aren’t an island drawcard for most tourists.

Unlike Australia where police investigate deaths in custody, Deborah Coles says the UK moved to independent investigations in 2004.

In a tragedy that has again ­invoked the shameful record of black deaths in custody in Western Australia, the Aboriginal woman — about to see a doctor for a suspected leg infection when arrested earlier this month — had begged to be hospitalised instead of kept in jail ...

Ray Jackson's Media release covers the NSW Attorney-General, Brad Hazzard, as to his decision on the 33 year old death in custody of Eddie Murray, the brutal assault by Redfern police to Ms Kathryne Fisher when they forced their way into her home, and the related Kings Cross incident when the Kings Cross police had wilfully and recklessly fired six shots into the car, the Un-gagged Lex Wotten, and more to the Palm Island cover-ups and lack of justice and the successful Aboriginal Passport Ceremony in Sydney.

A groundbreaking study on Aboriginal mothers in West Australian prisons has revealed the devastating effects of high levels of intergenerational incarceration on families.
Western Australians Curtin University researchers conducted interviews with 84 Aboriginal mothers in prisons across the state as part of a National Health and Medical Research Council-funded project, examining the experiences of First Nations women in prison in WA and NSW.