Indigenous Incarceration Rates Have Surpassed Those Of African-Americans In The United States
"Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet."
Indigenous incarceration rates have more than doubled since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report three decades ago.
Assistant Minister for Treasury Andrew Leigh revealed the damning stats to the Australian Institute of Criminology during their annual conference on Monday.
The over-representation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system has risen from one percent in 1990, to 2.3 percent in 2022. Western Australia was called out for a 3.5 percent incarceration rate, meaning that over one in 30 Indigenous adults in WA are currently behind bars.
“Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet,” reads the Uluru Statement from the Heart. “We are not an innately criminal people.”
Additionally, Indigenous children are being jailed at 20 times the rate of non-Indigenous children and were more likely to be jailed without being sentenced — amid continued nationwide calls to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14 years old.
“Based on the available data, incarceration rates for Indigenous Australians are higher than for African-Americans in the United States,” said Leigh in a speech. “They are also higher than for Indigenous people in Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.”
More broadly, Leigh noted that crime rates have been falling since the mid-1980s across Australia, despite the incarceration rate not following suit.
“The issue has instead been with how we have chosen to handle complex social challenges,” he said. “Stricter policing, tougher sentencing, and more stringent bail laws appear to be the main drivers behind Australia’s growing prison population.”
A separate report in October addressing over-representation in Australian prisons called for an Indigenous-led response to be at the forefront of change. “True lived experience, culture, healing, self-determination, and a deep community connection must be at the heart and soul of all work with First Nations people and communities,” Wiradjuri author Carly Stanley said to the National Indigenous Times.