this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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Aboriginal community shaken by second death in Australian police custody (www.aljazeera.com)
submitted 3 days ago by sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al to c/australia@aussie.zone
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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 3 days ago (24 children)

Thats not how statistics work. If anything you would have to look at frequency of police custody deaths and check if this is an anomaly or a trend.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone -2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (18 children)

When I last looked at it, it turned out per capita non-Indigenous died more often than Indigenous

Stats from the last few years are on the dashboard we have made specifically for this:

https://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/deaths-custody-australia-quarterly

They also commit per capita significantly higher amount of crime:

Indigenous people are 15 to 20 times more likely to commit violent offences than non-Indigenous people according to research released today.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-08/aboriginal-people-20-times-more-likely-to-commit/2602494

Which is what happened in this case as well

Speaking in Darwin on Tuesday afternoon, Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst said the man, believed to be from Alice Springs, "was placing items down the front of [his] clothing" when he was confronted by security guards.

"One of the security guards was assaulted and there were two police officers, who were in plain clothes at the time, in the supermarket who rendered assistance to the security guards," he said.

"The male behaved rather aggressively and was placed onto the ground by those police officers, he was later identified as losing consciousness."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-27/nt-alice-springs-coles-supermarket-death-in-custody/105344116

Many of them live out in the middle of no where are bored and out of work, surrounded by criminals and go no where in life, not much you can really do

Bonus points: Welcome to Alice Springs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MleJyK10uz0

https://youtu.be/YGz1Tiaying?t=3030

[–] Aussieiuszko@aussie.zone 5 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Cross-posting my rebuttal of this misleading stat:

It's not just that.

Aboriginal people died at a rate of 0.13 per 100 prisoners, compared to a death rate of 0.21 per 100 prisoners for the total prison population.

[...]

The same AIC report calculated that Indigenous people as a whole died in police custody at more than six times the rate of non-Indigenous people as a whole – 0.61 per 100,000 people, compared to 0.09 per 100,000 people.

As a prison population, they don't die at a higher rate. As a whole peoples they do.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/09/the-facts-about-australias-rising-toll-of-indigenous-deaths-in-custody

[–] ziltoid101@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Those middle paragraphs were kinda important though, tbf. It was explaining that as a whole they are more likely to die in custody because they are more likely to be in custody in the first place. When addressing hypotheses specifically about deaths in custody, the first statistic (where indigenous people are not overrepresented) is a lot more meaningful. If they're in custody, they're not more likely to die - that's not 'misleading', is it?

We need to do a lot to improve the treatment of indigenous people, that goes without saying. It's important that we're barking up the right tree, but I appreciate that it's a sensitive topic and it's also important to not just cite cold stats. It's a big issue - why are they overrepresented in custody? I don't think there is some magical instant answer, but I think broader history shows that addressing poverty will simultaneously address a lot of these issues.

[–] OutForARip@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No it’s not, it’s irrelevant which is why I cut it out.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 28% of the total prison population in Australia as of 30 June 2019, while making up just over 3% of the total population.

Already covers it in the first part. When you compare prison populations Aboriginal people die at a lesser rate because so many are locked that they lower the trend.

When you compare per person in society, they are overwhelmingly dying more often in custody compared to any other group.

[–] ziltoid101@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

It sounds like we agree - they're dying more in custody far more than non-indigenous because they are in custody far more than non-indigenous. Sorry if I misunderstood at any point.

While acknowledging the gravity of the deaths and always respecting cultural sensitivities, a successful systemic review should be focused on reducing overrepresentation in custody, not specifically just deaths in custody.

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