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	Indigenous Law Resources Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
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NATIONAL REPORT VOLUME 1 - 1.3 THE DISPROPORTIONATE NUMBERS OF ABORIGINAL PEOPLE IN CUSTODY

1.3.2 However, what is overwhelmingly different is the rate at which Aboriginal people come into custody, compared with the rate of the general community. The degree of over-representation in police custody, as measured by the Commission's study of police cell custody in August 1988, is twenty-nine times. In Chapters 5 to 9 those matters and their implications are discussed in detail. The ninety-nine who died in custody illustrate that over-representation and in a sense are the victims of it.

1.3.3 The conclusions are clear. Aboriginal people die in custody at a rate relative to their proportion of the whole population which is totally unacceptable and which would not be tolerated if it occurred in the non-Aboriginal community. But this occurs not because Aboriginal people in custody are more likely to die than others in custody but because the Aboriginal population is grossly over-represented in custody. Too many Aboriginal people are in custody too often.

1.3.4 The fact is that those features which I have mentioned as being found very generally in the lives of those who died are common to the Aboriginal community. In Chapter 11 the report deals with the social indicators of Aboriginal society and in Chapters 12 to 20 I discuss aspects of Aboriginal society today.

1.3.5 What these Chapters show in considerable detail is that the features noted in relation to those who died constantly re-appear in the broad fabric of Aboriginal society.

1.3.6 By all the indicators, as has often been said, Aboriginal people are disadvantaged when compared with any other distinct group in Australian society and with the society as a whole. In these chapters I discuss the economic position of Aboriginal people, the health situation, their housing requirements, their access or non-access to an economic base including land and employment, their situation in relation to education; the part played by alcohol-and other drugs--and its effects.

1.3.7 All these matters are calculated to lower self esteem; but equally important are other legacies of the history of two centuries of European domination of Aboriginal people.