AMA calls for governments to implement royal commission recommendations on Aboriginal deaths in custody

The Australian Medical Association is calling on governments to divert people away from incarceration and implement the recommendations of the 1991 Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission.

The AMA has also reiterated its call for states and territories to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, particularly due to the disproportionate impact on Indigenous people.

Both calls were made in the AMA’s new position paper on the human rights of people in custody, which recognises the “impacts of systemic racism within the Australian legal system”, particularly on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The president of the AMA, Prof Steven Robson, said that “on an average night in the June quarter of 2021, there were 677 children between the ages of 10–17 in detention facilities”.

“The AMA strongly maintains these facilities are no place for children – they are not rehabilitative and have deeply adverse effects on physical, psychological and emotional development,” he said.

In Victoria the Andrews government has proposed going it alone on raising the age of criminal responsibility after progress on raising the age across the country at meetings of federal, state and territory attorneys general stalled.

In December the Andrews government released a draft report that recommended raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 without exception. But their work is now looking at a proposal to raise the age to 12.

Some jurisdictions have already abandoned the process. The Northern Territory passed a bill to raise the age to 12 and the Australian Capital Territory plans to introduce a bill raising the age to 14 by 2026. Tasmania will lift the minimum age of incarceration to 14, while leaving the age of criminal responsibility at 10.

Guardian Australia has revealed that from 1991 to June 2022, 516 Indigenous people have died in custody in the three decades since the royal commission.

The AMA’s position paper said that the “disproportionately high rates of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia must be redressed through fundamental policy and legislative reform, investment into community-driven diversionary and rehabilitation programs”.

It called on the federal government to implement the recommendations of the royal commission and to ensure people in custody retain their entitlement to Medicare and the pharmaceutical benefits scheme.

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Robson said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in custodial settings “cannot access the MBS 715 health check, which is a key intervention in managing chronic disease”.

“People with complex medical conditions that require high-cost drugs have their treatment determined by state justice health departments – not the PBS. This is not equitable.”

In December the minister for Indigenous Australians, Wiradjuri woman Linda Burney, said the rates of incarceration and deaths in custody for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were a “national shame”.

Burney said the Albanese government was committed to working in partnership with First Nations people to achieve better justice outcomes, in line with closing the gap targets.

“We have committed $99m towards our First Nations justice package, including $81m for justice reinvestment initiatives,” she said. “Justice reinvestment needs to be community-led and include holistic approaches to keep Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people out of the criminal justice system.”