In 2023, the University of Queensland Pro Bono Centre and Prisoners’ Legal Service jointly published the UQ Deaths in Custody Project Report.
The Report presents a comprehensive analysis of 1,059 coronial inquest findings into deaths in custody in Australia between 1991 and 2023. The project, led by law students and supervised by Tamara Walsh and Angelene Counter, adopts the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody’s broad definition of ‘death in custody’ to track and examine these deaths.
A key finding is that 65% of deaths occurred in a prison. A further 27% of deaths were attributed to a police operation such as a vehicle pursuit. Overall, medical conditions (50%), suicide (23%) and accidents (12%) were the leading causes of deaths in custody.
In over a third of cases, coroners saw fit to make recommendations. When recommendations were made and medical care assessed, 74% of those cases found the care to be less than reasonable.
The Report indicates that First Nations people, who accounted for 33% of the prisoner population as of June 2023, represented 20% of all reported deaths. However, roughly two-thirds of the reported deaths did not clarify the deceased’s Indigenous status.
The Report also includes a brief literature review which primarily dives into the important topics of Indigenous and women’s deaths in custody in greater detail.
You can read the full report by clicking the link below.