Talk:Aboriginal deaths in custody

Delete Definition Wrangle?

Hi Wikipedians

I'm wondering if the last paragraph in the article on the SA Police Association's (ill considered) effort to change the definition of 'Deaths in Custody' is worth keeping. Yes it is accurate and may have felt worth writing about at the time. But given that nothing came of the move, and it only came from the Police Union of one state, I wonder if it merits recording. This article is rather long and cluttered as it is and I feel could benefit from some judicious trimming. What do people think? Rbngrss 2022 (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Cleanup

What needs cleaning up here? I'm happy to fix up whatever's wrong, if one of you guys who's marked it for cleanup can tell me what the problem is.

Hi Benvenuto and other Wikipedians

In point of fact if TJ Hickey was being pursued by the police this would count as a 'death in custody' and be one of the near 500 odd even though TJ himself never entered custody. This is a point that needs to be made more explicitly and clearly in the article. Actually, the police denied they were even looking for him which the coroner accepted but don't tell the crabby activists that! Rbngrss 2022 (talk) 08:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Rayd8 05:54, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit puzzled by the TJ Hickey link...he died as a result of a police chase, not in custodyBenvenuto (talk) 03:22, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism

Someone replaced "custody" with "custard" in this article, I changed it back.--Ganchelkas 13:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

'clean up'

Hi - Well in relation to the 'clean up' I can think of at least one thing - although the RCIADIC occurred in '88, there is no indication that the deaths have actually lessened but rather there appears to be less moral outrage than in previous decades. There is also little evidence that the 339 recommendations have ever been adequately implemented. 138.217.254.47 12:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Note

This has been removed, rightly in my view, from the article, but I think it can be left here on the talk page:

"The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation draws your attention to the cultural sensitivity of issues and material in the individual death reports of the Royal Commission. The Council asks that, in accessing and using these reports, you be aware of this and of the sensitivities of the living relatives and friends of those whose deaths are recorded in these documents."

--Bduke (talk) 05:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Start a list?

What do people think about starting a list of the people who die, when, where, the circumstances etc? Phantomnubian (talk) 22:13, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Stats

"For example, in 2009, an Indigenous Australian is 14 times more likely to be in prison than a non-Indigenous Australian, and in 2009, 25% of prisoners in Australia were Indigenous. Approximately 18% of deaths in custody in Australia between 1990 and 2007 were of Indigenous people."

These stats cover different periods of time and suggest that indigenous deaths are proportionally less than non-indigenous deaths. Isn't this the opposite of what the Commission was investigating? Stats that cover the same period are required that represent the issue. Ledpup (talk) 09:32, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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Racist Article?

I feel it is somewhat racist to have a full mention of Aboriginal deaths in custody while having no mention of non-aboriginal deaths in (Australian) custody. Apparently the latter happen at a higher rate. I have split this out to its own section, and would hope someone more knowledgeable than myself will expand upon it, perhaps by reading the cited report.Tuntable (talk) 00:59, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Just a quick note here for now. Statistics are tricky to unpack and extrapolate, and by the nature of Wikipedia, they are always quoted selectively. This article is still a work in progress, with more fleshing out and background to be added. I don't see anything racist about reading the figures in chronological order, along with the various comparisons - but happy to discuss here with other editors, and consensus rules. Also needs to be noted that Aboriginal people are imprisoned at a much higher rate. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

By all means extend and improve the stats, and analyze incarceration rates, crime rates etc. However, the fact that aboriginal deaths in custody happen at a lower rate than non-aboriginal deaths is not a minor point. It is essential to understanding the issue and should not be buried in a large section. Please leave it where it is.Tuntable (talk) 03:43, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Once the meat has been added to the bone, the flow of the article will become more apparent. Please do not keep reverting without further discussion here - which must include other editors. There are many factors behind stats, plus a major precursor to this article, the Royal Commission, is also undergoing improvement. When you consider that of the 99 deaths examined in the RC, 63 of them were in police custody, you will see that prison deaths are not the main issue here. And without looking at causes of death, age at death, and other factors, the bare numbers of the prison death rates cannot be integrated into the article fully. Also, Indigenous prisoners are younger than non-Indigenous, according to ABS stats. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:03, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

As my 2c here, while I agree that the deaths of others in custody is relevant to somebody understanding the topic, I am hesitant about this devolving into original research. We should only be reporting what is contained in reliable non-primary sources. We should not at any point, be using the ABS as this is a primary source. We shouldn't be interpreting the data and thankfully there are a myriad of news articles that have already interpreted it for us (even if we consider this incorrect or biased) Hollth (talk)

I have re-written the lede to be more reflective of the article context and it's related articles. The only information I deleted as part of this was a stat from the ABS which a) was from a primary source and beings to encroach on original research, b) was not in the body of the article, c) did not specify the date at which, making it unverifiable. Hollth (talk)

Thanks for your interest and changes, Hollth. As you will see, I have tweaked it a bit more, but don't have time to get right back into this at the moment as I'm in the middle of other things. Re the ABS stats, I'm pretty sure I only quoted them where they have been cited somewhere else, such as this site, so perhaps that should be looked at, and added as a source, before removing any of the stats. None is actual OR, I can assure you. You may be interested in the draft guide for terminology too. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:18, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

101%

The lede gives natural deaths at 58% and hangings at 43%. This can't be right. Konli17 (talk) 17:16, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the pickup, Konli17 - the result of a typo (touch-typing, fingers hit wrong keys!). Fixed now. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 23:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Cool. Konli17 (talk) 16:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)