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First Nations people with disability spending extended periods in custody, report finds
🇦🇺 Australia /Crime & Justice

First Nations people with disability spending extended periods in custody, report finds

From ABC Australia · () English

Summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • A national study led by Indigenous disability researchers found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities can spend long periods on remand without convictions.
  • The study found that some people lack appropriate healthcare, including sign-language interpretation and culturally safe services.
  • Researchers said undiagnosed disabilities and inadequate support can increase contact with the justice system and deepen disadvantage in custody.

People with disabilities from Australia's First Nations communities can remain in custody for months without convictions, including for minor offenses later withdrawn or overturned, according to a new Indigenous disability-led study.

The University of Melbourne's BlakAbility team examined the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities across the justice system. Researchers interviewed people with lived experience of incarceration, family members, legal aid practitioners, solicitors and academics.

These are not just Aboriginal people with disability going into the prison system, the remand system, the prison and the police cells.

— Sheelagh Daniels-MayesDaniels-Mayes described the extent of First Nations disability involvement in the justice system.

Legal representatives told the researchers they had been unable to obtain sign-language interpreters for deaf clients. As a result, some clients remained on remand longer. The team also heard that people with serious mental health conditions had spent months in prison over minor offenses before their charges were withdrawn or overturned.

These are turning up also in our deaths in custody numbers.

— Sheelagh Daniels-MayesDaniels-Mayes linked disability to Indigenous deaths in custody.

Associate Professor Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes said she was hearing increasingly that Indigenous people who died in custody had disabilities. “These are turning up also in our deaths in custody numbers,” said Daniels-Mayes, a Gomeroi woman.

The report said disabilities can go undiagnosed or unsupported because of limited culturally safe healthcare and differing cultural understandings of disability. A mental health condition, for example, may lead to behavior that brings someone into contact with police. Instead of receiving healthcare and support, that behavior may be treated as a criminal matter.

So therefore, they had to remain in remand for longer.

— Sharon KerrKerr explained the consequence of legal representatives being unable to obtain sign-language interpreters.

The researchers reviewed 177 studies and found only 18 that specifically examined Indigenous identity, disability and incarceration together. Aunty Roslyn Sackley said the team had been told that further research was unnecessary because the subject had already been studied. The findings arrive 35 years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody released its final report.

We were basically advised not to do any more research because it had all been done and basically there was nothing new to learn.

— Roslyn SackleySackley recalled being told that further research into the issue was unnecessary.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Australia. Summarized and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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