Deaths of young people in police and prison custody and juvenile detention, 1980-1992

Abstract

Data from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Australian Institute of Criminology's Death in Custody Monitoring and Research Unit are used to draw together details on the deaths of young people in the three major custodial environments: prison, police custody and juvenile detention facilities. Statistics and descriptive information is presented on numbers, jurisdictions, Aboriginality, age, gender, legal status, offences, and cause and manner of death over the 13 year period in review. Because of the fluctuation in the annual number of custodial deaths of young people no real trends can be established, but the majority of those who died were held in relation to property offences, and the most common manner of death was hanging.