The former Labor senator and Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commissioner Patrick Dodson has condemned inaction on known hanging points as “totally unacceptable” and joined calls for national leadership on justice reform.
Guardian Australia revealed last week that 57 Australians had died using hanging points that prison authorities knew about but failed to remove, often despite their use in repeated suicides and explicit warnings from coroners.
Dodson, a Yawuru elder often referred to as the “father of reconciliation”, was one of the royal commissioners who worked on the 1991 Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission. That royal commission told state governments to remove obvious hanging points from their prisons, a recommendation that was universally accepted.
Despite this, Guardian Australia has revealed how obvious hanging points have been allowed to remain in prisons including Brisbane’s Arthur Gorrie, where 10 hanging deaths occurred using the same type of exposed bars between 2001 and 2020, despite repeated, early coronial warnings that they be removed.
Even at the relatively new Darwin correctional centre, which opened in 2014, more than 20 years after the royal commission, cells were designed with an obvious and well-known hanging point, which was used in two hanging deaths in its first two full years of operation. The hanging point was not fully removed from cells until 2020.
“It’s totally unacceptable and this is where people need to be empowered and take action against those agencies based on their duty of care,” Dodson said.
“They have a duty of care. They’ve been told 30 years ago to get rid of these things.”
Indigenous Australians remain vastly overrepresented in prison populations and hundreds have died in custody – 101 of those by hanging – since the 1991 royal commission.
Official data shows the rate of Aboriginal hanging deaths is at a 17-year high, correlating with Australia’s surging prisoner population.
Guardian Australia revealed last week that in 2020, after the hanging death of young Indigenous man Tane Chatfield, the New South Wales government told a coroner it had audited Tamworth prison for hanging points but could find none. An independent inspection of Tamworth prison less than 12 months later found “multiple hanging points” including some that had been purportedly removed.
• Guardian Australia asked every state government what has been done to address the problem. You can read their responses in full here.
Dodson said the federal government, through the standing council of attorneys general, should take a national leadership approach on reforms that reduce Indigenous incarceration rates and reduce deaths in custody, including by removing hanging points. His voice adds to that of a group of crossbenchers, including David Pocock, David Shoebridge, Lidia Thorpe and Zali Steggall, calling for federal leadership on the issue of hanging points after the Guardian’s investigation.
Dodson said the federal government should establish a national Aboriginal justice commission to progress nationally coordinated reforms and ensure state governments are responding to the recommendations of the 1991 royal commission, many of which remain unmet.
He said the attorney general, Michelle Rowland, should ensure the issue is listed on the next agenda of the standing council of attorneys general.
“The other thing that the attorney general should be doing is convening a group of the Aboriginal leadership in this space to discuss, have a discussion with them about the need for [an Aboriginal justice commission] and its importance,” he said. “I think we need a structure, otherwise, where does it end, you know?”
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, Katie Kiss, said the removal of hanging points from prison cells to reduce self-harm was a “key recommendation” from the 1991 royal commission
“The failure to implement this – and all other – recommendations exacerbates the ongoing national shame that is Aboriginal deaths in custody,” she said.
“The treatment of our people, particularly when it comes to the administration of the justice system, is a deep stain on this country. They are being failed by an oppressive system that continues to deny their rights.”
Kiss said “immediate, tangible steps” must be taken to ensure that incarceration is a last resort, including investment in preventive measures to stop people from being detained in the first place and to ensure their safety and wellbeing if they are detained.
“We need to end this cycle of abuse, injustice, and trauma. In many cases, duty of care is not being administered – from the point of arrest, within police custody, in prisons and detention facilities,” she said. “People’s lives are at stake and their human rights must be upheld.”
A spokesperson for Rowland said any death in custody was a tragedy.
The spokesperson said the attorney general was working with her state and territory counterparts to “accelerate progress on justice targets and achieve government commitments under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap”.
“The Attorney-General strongly encourages state and territory governments to review their practices and continue to work toward effective solutions that ensure the safety and dignity of all Australians in the justice system,” the spokesperson said.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
