Over twenty years ago the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody highlighted the fact that the rate of imprisonment of Indigenous Australians was over 13 times higher than the rate of non-Indigenous Australians, now it is almost 16 times higher. Indigenous prison populations are increasing faster than non-Indigenous prison populations. Non-Indigenous imprisonment rates have increased by three percent, whereas Indigenous imprisonment rates have increased by five percent since 2006. The situation is much worse for juveniles, an Indigenous person under 18 years of age is almost 21 times more likely to be incarcerated than a non-Indigenous person under 18 years. In the Northern Territory 83% of prisoners are Indigenous yet there are over three times as many non-Indigenous people living in the Northern Territory than Indigenous people. In Western Australia 41% of prisoners are Indigenous and an Indigenous person is over 25 times more likely to be imprisoned than a non-Indigenous person in that state.

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