Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody
A Royal Commission (a major government public inquiry into an issue) into Aboriginal deaths in custody was announced in 1987 after a spate of Aboriginal deaths in prison and police custody and in response to a growing public concern that such deaths were too common and poorly explained. Hearings began in 1988, the final report was submitted in April 1991.
Findings of the commission
The Royal Commission examined the deaths of 99 people who had died in custody between 1 January 1980 and 31 May 1989. It looked into both the causes of the deaths and the prevention of future deaths and tried to answer the question: Why are so many Indigenous people in custody? Why were they treated that way?
The Commission's findings:
- Aboriginal people do not die at a higher rate than non-Aboriginal people in custody.
- The rate at which Aboriginal people are taken into custody is overwhelmingly different.
Aboriginal deaths in custody. After deaths peaked in 1997 they have steadily fallen until 2007 when 74
Aboriginal people died in police or prison custody [5]. Note that figures include deaths in police custody since 1990.
Police have a duty of care no matter what [offenders] have done.—Recruits episode 11 on Channel 10
The conclusion was that too many Aboriginal people are in custody too often. In its report the commission made 339 recommendations, for example
- Arrest people only when no other way exists for dealing with a problem.
- Imprisonment should be utilised only as a sanction of last resort.
- Initiate a formal process of reconciliation between Aboriginal people and the wider community.
The last recommendation led to the establishment of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. However, levels of female Aboriginal prison rates have increased by a third between 2002 and 2007, and the number of Indigenous men by one-fifth [4], while police custodial rates remain as high as before.
This comes to no surprise. A survey of the Australian Indigenous Law Review in 2009 showed that Australia's states had only acted on a fraction of the commisson's recommendations. Victoria acted on 27%, NSW on 48%, Tasmania on 41%, South Australia 52% and Western Australia 50%. Besides the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory was the most adherent to recommendations because mandatory reporting is in place in the NT [6].
Case studies
Aboriginal deaths in custody happened before the commission was formed and still happen today. The deaths of John Pat and Eddie Murray are just two examples. One of the most recent cases is the death of Doomadgee Mulrunji in 2004 after a senior police officer 'fell' on him.
Death of John Pat (aged 16)
John Pat was just 16 years old when he got involved in a fight outside the Victoria Hotel in September 1983 in Roebourne, northern Western Australia. Off-duty police allegedly had assaulted Aboriginal people who in turn fought back, sparking the brawl.
According to witnesses, John Pat was struck in the face by a policeman and fell backward, striking his head hard on the roadway. One of the off-duty police went over to Pat and kicked him in the head.
Pat was then allegedly dragged to a waiting police van, kicked in the face, and thrown in 'like a dead kangaroo' [2]. He and other Aboriginal people were driven to Roebourne police station.
While some of the assaulted Aboriginal people spent up to a week in hospital recovering from the injuries inflicted on them by police, John Pat died a little over an hour after he was locked up.
A subsequent autopsy revealed a fractured skull, haemorrhage and swelling as well as bruising and tearing, of the brain. Pat had sustained a number of massive blows to the head. One bruise at the back of his head was the size of the palm of one's hand.
Police seem to respond more vigorously to public drunkenness by Aboriginal people than to domestic violence in white society. In 1983 Roebourne had eight officers and two police aides while the nearby 'white' town of Wickham had half as many police for twice the population [2].
In court an all-white jury heard the five police officers denying the acts of violence they were accused of, and that any actions on their part were done in 'self-defence' despite evidence of blood on police officer's boots.
On the same day the jury found all police not guilty.
Charges were laid against some of the Aboriginal people, and they were subsequently fined for assault, resisting arrest or hindering police.
The death in custody of John Pat bears great parallels to the more recent case of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island in 2004 who died hours after he had been put in prison for public drunkenness.
We have to get rid of racist cops. I don't want to dwell on the past, but I have grown up bitter.—Ben Taylor, Aboriginal elder, Perth [3]
Memorial for John Pat in front of the prison walls of the decommissioned Fremantle Prison. It was
erected in September 1994 "in memory of all Aboriginal people who have died in custody in Australia".
The poet Jack Davis contributed a poem which is inscribed on the right hand side of the memorial (see also below).
John Pat by Jack Davis
Write of life / the pious said forget the past / the past is dead. But all I see / in front of me is a concrete floor / a cell door / and John Pat. Agh! tear out the page / forget his age thin skull they cried / that's why he died! But I can't forget / the silhouette of a concrete floor / a cell door / and John Pat. The end product / of Guddia law is a viaduct / for fang and claw, and a place to dwell / like Roebourne's hell of a concrete floor / a cell door / and John Pat. He's there - where? there in their minds now / deep within, there to prance / a sidelong glance / a silly grin to remind them all / of a Guddia wall a concrete floor / a cell door / and John Pat.
The death in custody of Eddie Murray (aged 21)
Eddie Murray was 21 when he was last arrested. On June 21, 1981 he was drinking under a tree with his cousin and some friends.
He was arrested at 1.45am, taken to Wee Waa police station (about 400 kms north-east of Sydney), and held under the Intoxicated Persons Act. Within the hour he was dead, strangled with a blanket in his cell.
At the inquest the police claimed he had killed himself by hanging, even though they agreed under cross examination that he was "so drunk he couldn't scratch himself". Yet according to them, Eddie had managed to tear a strip off a thick prison blanket, deftly fold it, thread it through the bars of the window, tie two knots, fashion a noose and hang himself without his feet leaving the ground.
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Later the police were found to have lied under oath. The coroner ruled that Eddie had died "at the hands of person or persons unknown" and strongly criticised the police. No-one was charged with Eddie's murder, a fact that left his parents Arthur and Leila deeply unsatisfied.
The Murrays initiated an exhumation of Eddie's remains in 1997 which revealed injuries undisclosed at the original post mortem and during the Royal Commission, and in 2000 the matter was referred to the NSW Police Integrity Commission for further investigation.
In 2006 Simon Luckhurst launched his book "Eddie's Country", a detailed history of the complex social, historical and legal issues experienced by members of the Murray family: "It attempts an unbiased and comprehensive exploration of the Eddie Murray case, which incorporates a socio-political context as well as a personal one. For the first time all the available evidence on the case has been brought together, and the result is both revealing and moving." [1]
Death in 42-degree heat
On the night of 25 January 2008 Mr Ward was arrested for a traffic offence in Laverton, about 900km north-east of Perth [7]. A Justice of the Peace refused him bail so that the next day he was to be transported to Kalgoorlie, 360km south, for a scheduled court appearance the following week.
He was placed in the steel cell of an ageing prison van in 42-degree heat and only given a 600ml bottle of water. The two prison officers driving the van did not make any comfort breaks or checks on Mr Ward.
It wasn't until they heard a thump that they stopped and checked, discovering Mr Ward had collapsed in the back of the van. He was taken to Kalgoorlie hospital but all efforts to revive him failed. He had died of heatstroke.
An inquest into Mr Ward's death-in-custody case found that the two prison officers, the prisoner transport company and the Western Australian Department of Corrective Services were collectively responsible for his death. [8]
"The doctor who opened the door of the van to extract Mr Ward told the inquest that it felt like a blast from a furnace as the air escaped from the tiny steel cell pod."
Evidence indicated that Aboriginal Elder Mr Ward had suffered third degree burns to his upper torso after falling onto the hot surface of the steel cell.
The department had been warned many times that the vehicles used to transport prisoners in remote regions were "a grave danger" to any prisoner.
A question which is raised by the case is how a society, which would like to think of itself as being civilised, could allow a human being to be transported in such circumstances.—Alistair Hope, coroner [8]
Resources
The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper is the story of the death of Palm Islander Cameron Mulrunji Doomadgee, who in November 2004 swore at a policeman and forty-five minutes later lay dead in a watch house cell.
The book offers a brilliant insight into the clash of two worlds—and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget.
Out of respect for Aboriginal culture I use Indigenous sources as much as possible.
NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs, en.wikipedia.org
[1] www.simonluckhurst.com
[2] 'An Aboriginal death in custody : the case of John Pat', Australian Institute of Criminology, www.aic.gov.au/publications/lcj/wayward/ch5t.html
[3] 'John Pat memorial', Green Left, 10/10/1995, www.greenleft.org.au/1995/206/11068
[4] 'Aboriginal jail rates soar, but incomes rise', Sydney Morning Herald 1/6/2007
[5] 'Deaths in custody in Australia: National Deaths in Custody Program 2007', Australian Institute of Criminology, 2009
[6] 'Findings 'ignored'', Koori Mail 445 p.17
[7] Mr Ward's first name cannot be named for cultural reasons.
[8] 'Charge them, says Coroner', Koori Mail 453 p.1