2021 Human Rights Watch: Australia. Indigenous Australians are significantly over-represented in the criminal justice system, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprising 29% of Australia’s adult prison population, but just 3% of the national population. 1/8
There were at least seven Indigenous deaths in custody in Australia in 2020 - four in Western Australian prisons, two in Victoria, and one in a Brisbane police watch house. 2/8
In April, a Victorian coroner found the 2017 death of Aboriginal woman Tanya Day "clearly preventable” and that "unconscious bias" was a factor in her being reported to police and arrested. 3/8
Day died when she sustained a head injury in a police cell. Despite the coroner ruling that police officers may have committed an indictable offense, Victoria Police decided not to bring charges. 4/8
In June, the Western Australian parliament passed laws to reduce the practice of jailing people for unpaid fines, which disproportionately impact Indigenous people and people with lower incomes. 5/8
Three young Indigenous men in Western Australia took the government to court in July, alleging they were held for more than 23 hours a day for up to eight weeks in solitary confinement in prison, prompting an official review of prison policy. 6/8
The QLD health ombudsman found health care delivered to a 6-year-old boy who died in 2017 was “likely inadequate” and that “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples remain at a significant disadvantage compared to others across many health measures.” 7/8
The chief executive of global mining giant Rio Tinto announced he would be stepping down following an outcry over the company's destruction of a 46,000-year-old Indigenous site in Western Australia in May. 8/8
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