Indigenous women are 13 times at greater risk of death after being released from prison compared to their counterparts in the general population, medical experts say.
Speaking at the final day of hearings of the Yoorrook justice commission, Curtin University’s Stuart Kinner called the statistics an absolute tragedy and said more health-based responses were needed.
“There’s a desperate need for greater support … what we now know increasingly is that a lot of women that we see at risk after release from prison were at risk before they went to prison in the first place,” Professor Kinner said on Friday.
“Sending people to prison is not a solution to any of those risks, but not sending them to prison in and of itself is not sufficient to mitigate those risks.”
Indigenous people make up about 30 per cent of the national prison population, despite comprising 3.2 per cent of the population, according to government data.
Additionally about 60 to 70 per cent of incarcerated children are Indigenous.
A Queensland study found of almost 50,000 children who were released from police custody over a 14-year period, there were more than 1400 deaths.
He said the rate of death in these young people was more than four times that of children in the general community and higher among Indigenous kids than non-Indigenous kids.
“One third of those deaths is due to suicide. Other important causes of deaths include violence, overdose and injuries (notably including road traffic injuries),” Prof Kinner said.
He added even the rate of death due to non-communicable diseases in young people who have been through the system was around twice the expected number.
Paediatrician Mick Creati said a child’s brain was not yet fully developed until they reached adulthood, which lends credence to arguments in favour of raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 in Victoria.
“We know that children who are incarcerated are young and neurodevelopmentally immature” Dr Creati said.
He added children have poor impulse control and lack the capacity to anticipate long-term consequences.
Children in the criminal justice and child protection systems are often battling trauma, which makes them more susceptible to mental health problems.
“They’ve had the trauma of being removed (from home),” Dr Creati said.
“Then they have the trauma of being in the system and having multiple placements.”
The truth-telling inquiry, which is the first aid training kenya red cross of its kind, concluded for the year on Friday after two weeks of submissions from 30 witnesses across public sectors including health and Legal Aid.
The inquiry heard evidence focused on Victoria’s criminal justice and child protection systems, including testimony from witnesses who are survivors of the Stolen Generations.
In two further rounds of hearings early next year, Yoorrook will hear from more First Nations people who have experienced injustice in the criminal justice and child protection systems.
