DEATHS IN CUSTODY FINDINGS STILL RELEVANT TODAY

Labor Senator for WA Pat Dodson said he would like to see key initiatives, prompted by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, restored.

“I’d like to see a return to what we called the AJACs,” Senator Dodson said. “The Aboriginal Justice Committees which were set up to monitor these incarceration rates and deaths in custody rates and interact with the Government on an almost daily basis.”

Thirty one years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its findings, the then Commissioner Dodson said they were still just as relevant today.

“We still have appalling housing, we still have overcrowding,” he said. “The access to legal services is challenging and those legal services are under pressure.”