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Comment on Aboriginal community shaken by second death in Australian police custody

We did, it turns out per capita white men died more often, in the last few years it looks like 3:1:

aic.gov.au/…/deaths-custody-australia-quarterly

They are 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.

www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-08/…/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.”

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-27/…/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

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MoreZombies@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Doesn’t Non-Indigenous encapsulate more than just “White people”…?

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- Eyekaytee@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  yeah
  
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Aussieiuszko@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

theguardian.com/…/the-facts-about-australias-risi…

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- ziltoid101@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
  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.
  
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  - OutForARip@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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    ziltoid101@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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ziltoid101@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As a bleeding heart leftist, this is a very sound argument. I’m a huge advocate for indigenous rights, and I get worried seeing articles that essentially imply police brutality (specifically towards indigenous people over non-indigenous) is the root cause of problems, when the evidence is that it is much deep, systemic, and more complicated than that. Perhaps people want the problem to be police brutality because that would be a more tangible problem, something that can be fixed in a reasonable amount of time with the right review or changes to policing.

I get it - it sucks even thinking about issues where there are no “good” solutions. It’s a tragedy that indigenous people are overrepresented in custody, but it’s ultimately poverty that leads to being in custody in the first place. I wish people directed more attention towards addressing indigenous poverty rather than band-aid fixes that won’t really lead to long-term healing.

With that said, any death in custody deserves proper review. There was no reason this arrest had to end this way.

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muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Who’s down voting this? How can people dislike hard objective data?

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- guillem@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Because before editing it was drawing wrong conclusions from the data. If you torture data long enough it will confess to anything.
  
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- Aussieiuszko@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Cos it’s shit.
  
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- BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Because your statement reads as “people dying isn’t good but this affects fuck all people”
  
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  - muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That’s what my comment was. I was just confused about why some other guy who just dropped the facts and data was being downvoted.
    
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    spiffmeister@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Because his contexless stats is just 13/50 for indigenous Australians. I know it’s popular with American conservatives to say that black people deserve it, but we can do better.
    
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    BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Well it’s a discussion in bad taste. I don’t really know how to explain more because this should be obvious already why people wouldn’t like seeing it.
    
    I can present a report on an extremely low LTIFR right after a workplace fatality and watch as I never get to present data in that room again.
    
    Turning around and saying “but it’s factual!” isn’t going to get a “you’re right. Good job mate”
    
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guillem@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Sorry but if Indigenous people are like a 3% of the total population and that table shows absolute numbers, you have the per capita calculation very wrong.

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- Eyekaytee@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/…/fsi6oql/
  
  Indigenous deaths in custody: 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
  
  Twenty-five years has passed since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC). This paper examines the trends and characteristics of Indigenous deaths in custody since 1991–92, using data obtained through the National Deaths in Custody Program (NDICP). NDICP data show Indigenous prisoners are now less likely than non-Indigenous prisoners to die in prison custody, largely due to a decrease in the death rate of Indigenous prisoners from 1999–2000 to 2005–06. Coinciding with this decrease in the death rate of Indigenous prisoners is a decrease in the hanging death rate of Indigenous prisoners. Monitoring trends and characteristics of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous deaths in custody supports the development of proactive strategies addressing this important issue.
  
  www.aic.gov.au/publications/sb/sb17
  
  Sorry but if Indigenous people are like a 3% of the total population and that table shows absolute numbers, you have the per capita calculation very wrong
  
  I’ll separate the comments because I wasn’t referring one to the other
  
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