Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

If we want real solutions to our country's problems, we must deal with facts. With deaths in custody, the data shows there is no crisis. The rate of deaths in custody has been steady for around 20 years, at around half it's early-nineties peak. These are indisputable data from the Australian Institute of Criminology, the government agency tasked especially with monitoring deaths in custody. Adjusted for population, non-Indigenous prisoners were twice as likely to die in prison than Indigenous prisoners. Yes, you heard that right. If you are not an Indigenous person, you are twice as likely to die in prison than an Indigenous prisoner. Due to the small numbers, deaths in police custody fluctuate from year to year. The data on Indigenous deaths in custody per Indigenous population has drastically reduced since the nineties and has remained steady at this low rate for nearly 20 years. The real crisis is male deaths in prison. On a population adjusted basis in the last reported year, men were 60 per cent more likely to die in prison than women.