Because of the discrimination of the justice system
Indigenous Australians lose their lives in custody as a result of minor misdemeanors
Australians practice a traditional ritual before the "Black Lives Matter" event.
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Demonstration in Australia in solidarity with the killing of George Floyd in America.
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Tania is a victim of detention.
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Latoya and her brother Morrison.
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Rebecca Mehr unjustly lost her life in a police detention center.
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Rebecca Meher was unable to keep her youngest child, because Australian child protection services took him away from her as soon as he was born, according to expert in the Indigenous Rights Group Justice Tracy Hanshaw.
This is the third child child protection officials took from her, due to his mother's drug addiction since her teens, and because of which she died in a police cell at the age of 36.
The coroner's report says that "although Rebecca's children did not live with her at that time and until her death, it is clear that she has always been an important part of their lives, and she loved them very much."
Meher is one of more than 455 Aboriginal Australians who have died in prison, police custody, and youth detention, since 1991, when the Royal Commission published its report on Aboriginal deaths in custody, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology's latest report.
An unofficial census conducted by the Guardian newspaper's database estimates that the current total number of these victims is 474, including five in the past five weeks.
Indigenous problems
Stories such as Meher's story show the depth of deprivation suffered by the indigenous population, many of whom were drawn into prisons at an early age, depriving them of education and jobs, and leading to the persistence of social problems that pass between them from generation to generation.
"This discrimination is a symptom of the continuing and destructive colonial system in this country, which began more than 200 years ago, but our people are still being killed," said Senator of the Green Party, Lydia Thorpe, who is an indigenous person.
30 years ago, the royal commission asserted that indigenous people were not dying at a higher rate than other non-indigenous people, but that the truth is that those who died in custody were victims of unfairly administered justice.
It remains the same today.
Indigenous people make up only 2.4% of the general population of 20 years or over, but over the past 10 years they have made up more than a quarter of all adult prisoners.
"Our people are demonized in this country, even though we are the oldest culture that continues in the world," Thorpe says.
The Royal Commission sought to reduce indigenous deaths in custody through 339 recommendations, including many that called for redress and improvement in their health and well-being.
Critics say few of the recommendations have been implemented.
But Thorpe says that among those recommendations "which call for encouraging indigenous people to roll up their sleeves and do some hard work, they are still pending today, and they are recommendations that would make a huge difference in the lives of our people."
Painful past and unfair treatment
When British settlers colonized Australia in the late 1700's, they began to deliberately and systematically marginalize the indigenous people of the country, dispossess their lands, and interfere with nearly every aspect of their lives, as revealed by the Royal Commission of 1991.
The commission examined the lives of 99 indigenous people who died during the 1980s, and found that all of them were on "the margins of society."
Their health ranged from "poor to very bad", and their economic situation was "catastrophic."
Today, their problems often start in childhood, as nearly half of the young people who are detained per night are indigenous, even though they only make up 6% of young people between the ages of 10 and 17, according to government statistics.
Martin Hodgson, chief attorney at the nonprofit Foreign Prisoners Sport, said: “We often see indigenous people being criminalized while they are still children because of minor problems related to the lack of services in their communities.” Once someone enters the prison system, it affects their physical health. And for many, a series of stressors affect their mental health. ”
As a volunteer, Hancho talks to young Indigenous people who need support. “A 17-year-old told me that his father and uncles were all in prison and that they would be really proud of him once he got there,” she says.
Meher was not supposed to go to jail.
Her mother said that she loved animals and wanted to be a teacher when she grew up.
According to the coroner's report, Mehr contacted the police for the first time in 1995, the year she turned 16.
Hancho says Meher's problems started when she reported to the police that she had been raped, but no one believed her.
"I sought to relieve this pain, I think, by using drugs, which is why I am slightly off the bars of the right path," Hancho says.
Meher was 16 years old when she gave birth to her first child (a boy), then another was born 11 years later.
By that time, she was prescribed methadone, as a treatment for drug addiction, as well as benzodiazepines "to control heroin symptoms," according to the coroner's report.
Two more children followed - a girl and then a boy - one year later.
By the time Mehr turned 34, the authorities took three of her four children from her.
Death is "judgment and destiny"
Detention due to drunkenness does not exist in New South Wales, where Meher died, but the law allows officers to detain drunkards for their own safety and for the safety of others, where they can get help.
On the day Meher died, a police officer saw her staggering in the middle of the road, and took her back to the police station. Officers initially mistakenly believed that she had violated the bail conditions for theft, and then because she appeared to be drunk.
According to the forensic doctor, the police made no attempt to contact Meher's family.
The coroner found that Meher did not drink alcohol, but the combination of drugs she took causes "respiratory depression and weakness."
The officers did not know what she had eaten, and did not research it because they mistakenly believed that she was HIV-positive.
The forensic doctor revealed that if they investigated the matter, they would find two bottles of pills hidden in the leg of their pants.
Instead, officers locked her in a cell, and while they monitored her via CCTV, no one tried to physically wake her for more than four hours.
NSW police procedures require officers to try to speak to the drunk every half hour for the first two to three hours to assess their physical safety.
If they are asleep, they should be awakened, and if there is no response, they should seek medical help.
The court ruled that Meher's death was a matter of fate.
Attorney Tamara Walsh says many like Mehr die alone in police cells and prisons rather than receiving medical assistance.
In 2016, Walsh created the Deaths in Custody Database, the nation's first publicly searchable database of published forensic reports relating to people who died in custody.
Walsh and her team have read more than 700 reports dating back to 1997, and she said the same themes continue to emerge.
The lives of indigenous Australians matter, too
Over the past year, thousands of people in Australia have participated in the "Black Lives Matter" marches, after the black American, George Floyd, was killed in the United States by the police.
However, human rights advocates say there are few public protests in Australia when an Aboriginal person dies in custody, whatever the circumstances.
"When we see the concern about indigenous people in the past five or six years, it has been happening against the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States," said Martin Hodgson, chief lawyer at the nonprofit Foreign Prisoners Sport.
The Australian Aboriginal community is closely watching the high-profile trial of the former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, who caused the death of Floyd, while not persuasively prosecuted anyone who caused the aboriginal death in custody.
The lack of accountability has angered the indigenous community, whose members say they feel the judicial system is working against them.
The native, Latoya Rolle, says her brother Wayne Villa Morrison died in custody five years ago, and his family is still waiting for answers.
The 29-year-old father had been scheduled to appear on a video link at a hearing on the bail of his son, an inmate at Yatala Workers' Prison in South Australia, when Correctional Services officers alleged he attacked them in his cell, according to a related Supreme Court hearing.
Other officers rushed in, tied him by his wrists and ankles and forced him to wear a hood, a face covering designed to prevent spitting in use in many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.
Morrison was tied down in the back of a truck, accompanied by five officers.
After three minutes, they brought him out, unconscious.
Three days later, Roll says, his family gathered by his bedside when doctors switched off his life support devices due to his death.
Legal amendment
A new foundation was launched this month to help Indigenous families affected by deaths in custody. It is called “Gadegwa,” meaning the shining of the sun in “yurta yurta,” the language spoken by indigenous people in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales.
It was founded by a native citizen, April Day, whose mother, Tania, was arrested for general drunkenness in a train in 2017. Tania died of a brain haemorrhage after stumbling and bumping her head several times in a police cell.
For three hours, officers gave her a quick check-up before calling an ambulance.
No one has been charged, but after her death the state of Victoria voted to abolish the crime of public drunkenness, and this change in the law will take effect in November 2022.
Indigenous people make up only 2.4% of the general population aged 20 or over, but over the past 10 years they have made up more than a quarter of all adult prisoners.
30 years ago, the royal commission asserted that indigenous people were not dying at a higher rate than other non-indigenous people, but that the truth is that those who died in custody were victims of unfairly administered justice. The situation remains the same today.
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