Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website contains the names and images of people who have passed
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website contains the names and images of people who have passed
This is a RCIADIC recommendation
45
Common collection across jurisdictions for custodial data
That the appropriate Ministerial Councils strive to achieve a commonality of approach in data collections concerning both police and prison custody.
Aboriginal Justice Caucus Assessment
The intent of Recommendation 45 was to establish consistent and comprehensive data collection on people held in custody to improve transparency and support informed decision-making. The Aboriginal Justice Caucus (AJC) noted that actions taken partially align with this intent. While there is no common collection of police custody data, some progress has been made through the annual Prisoners in Australia (ABS) and Youth Justice in Australia (AIHW) reports, which provide nationally comparable data on the demographic and legal characteristics of Aboriginal adults and young people in custody across states and territories. The AJC considered Recommendation 45 was still relevant and a moderate priority for further work, as regular publication of custody data ensures that governments and Aboriginal communities are better informed and able to take effective action. The AJC also highlighted that consistent police custody data collection, as outlined in Recommendation 43, is largely the responsibility of national bodies, and that any progress on related recommendations in Victoria could support this effort.
Priority for Further Work:
Moderate
Relevance and potential impact | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Low (0-2) | Moderate (3-4) | High (5-6) | |||
Extent of action taken and evidence of outcomes | High (5-6) | ||||
Moderate (3-4) | |||||
Low (0-2) | |||||
Background
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) emphasised the importance of information on people in custody being comparable across states and territories and in a form that enables data to be aggregated to produce a national overview. At the time of the RCIADIC the Australian Institute of Criminology had made successful efforts in relation to prison custody.
Actions Taken Since Last Review
Australian Institute of Criminology
The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) conducted National Police Custody Surveys in August 1992, August 1995 and October 2002 with the cooperation of each police jurisdiction in Australia. In the report from the 2002 survey, the AIC aimed to continue to monitor patterns in police custody through the conduct of future police custody surveys. However, no surveys have been published since 2002.
For the 2002 survey, a uniform procedure and methodology was not applied as data were collected in different ways. Data for the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and Victoria were collected by police officers at the station who manually completed a separate data collection form for each occasion of custody and forwarded the form to the AIC for coding, data entry, editing and analysis. Data for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, Northern Territory and Tasmania were provided in the form of electronic datasets, and the required information was manually sorted and extracted by an AIC researcher. The introduction of the electronic method of data provision created issues with the comparability of the data between jurisdictions. Missing data was a major problem.
Australian Bureau of Statistics
The collection of statistics on prison custody was established in 1983 by the AIC until the ABS took over responsibility in 1993. The first official ABS release of Prisoner Census statistics was through the 2000 publication, Prisoners in Australia. Prior to this, the data were presented as an annual report for the Corrective Services Ministers' Council by the National Corrective Services Statistics Unit.
The Prisoner Census provides a national view of adults in prison across Australia, as well as comparable data across states and territories and a basis for measuring change over time. The quarterly ABS publication, ‘Corrective Services, Australia’, also contains information on persons in prison that is comparable across jurisdictions.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
The AIHW collects information from all states and territories about young people in custody under for the Youth Justice National Minimum Data Set (YJ NMDS). Annual reports developed from this data set include information about children and young people in youth detention.
Impact
Outputs
There has not been a report from the National Police Custody Service since the 2002 survey. The ABS’ annual Prisoners in Australia releases provide a national view of adults in prison, and comparable data across states and territories. Similarly, the AIHW’s Youth Justice in Australia series provides a national view of young people in youth detention, and comparable data across state and territories.
Outcomes
The absence of consistent and comparable data about people in police custody limits understanding of their circumstances, risks and outcomes and reduces the potential for oversight, and monitoring of trends and changes over time.