It is 34 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody concluded and experts, researchers and community advocates say the systemic issues that prompted the investigation remain largely unresolved, and most of the 339 recommendations have not been implemented.Despite making up just 3.2 per cent of the Australian population, Indigenous Australians represent 36 per cent of the prison population and accounted for 23 per cent of deaths in custody from 2023 to 2024, as reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Australian Institute of Criminology.
WA’s Inspector of Custodial Services Eamon Ryan said it is a necessity for the government to allocate more of the budget to support programs, both in prison and out.
Although prisons now offer dynamic security and support systems, he said they are underfunded and under resourced.
He added the Royal Commission’s recommendations should be implemented fully and practically, “rather than just as a compliance.”
His views were seconded by Associate Professor Jocelyn Jones, who said there was a need to keep the recommendations from falling off the agenda.
She further emphasised a need for greater government commitment to evidence-based and community-orientated, culturally safe programs to break the cycle of contact with the justice system a disproportionate number of First Nations people experience.
University of Western Australia Director of criminology Hilde Tubex’s agreed. She described the ongoing lack of reform as evidence of political apathy, saying “the indifference is deafening.”
She said she ceased her research into Indigenous justice as “there’s no reason to investigate any further, we know what we need to know.”
She argued the lack of government implementation of recommendations is due to a lack of political courage, as there is no political gain in improving prisoner conditions, meaning change is not a priority.
Despite growing criticism, Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy offered assurance that the Commonwealth was focusing on preventative justice strategies to reduce First Nations incarceration rates.
The minister also emphasised responsibility for justice systems lies within states and territories, an approach City of Stirling councillor Elizabeth Re dismissed as “cost shifting”.
Ms Re argued states are not audited appropriately on their actions or spending, making the structure ineffective. “They don’t want to look futuristically. It’s just about saving money.”
Conflicting reports also complicate the picture.
A positive review by Deloitte Access Economics in 2018 found that over 90 per cent of the Royal Commission’s recommendations have been implemented.
However, a 2021 study from the Centre for Indigenous Policy Research at the Australian National University criticised the Deloitte review and concluded that “very few” of the recommendations have been properly enacted, and many have been “directly contravened” by current laws and policies.
As the CIPR report stated plainly, major change is needed. It said if governments had followed through on recommendations, many First Nations deaths in custody could have been prevented.
