Women who have died in custody in Western Australia since 1990 – Sisters Inside, Is Prison Obsolete? conference, October 2016

This paper examines the deaths of women in Western Australian prison and police custody since the end of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody hearings in 1989. About 50 per cent of the female prison population in WA is Aboriginal and Aboriginal women account for half of the deaths in custody of women in WA. In 2016 the coroner is expected to hand down findings into two deaths of Aboriginal women in police lockups in the state’s north between 2012 and 2014. Looking at coronial inquest reports and other sources, I trace how policing practices led to the women who have died in custody being incarcerated in the first instance and compare these practices with those described in the Royal Commission reports of Aboriginal women who had died in custody prior to 1989.