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# When being black is a crime
- URL: https://redflag.org.au/article/when-being-black-crime-0/
- Published: 2014-06-03T02:48:21.000Z
- Updated: 2024-03-23T05:49:07.000Z
- Author: Red Flag Staff
- Tags: #Import 2025-10-13 13:49

Being Black is a crime in this country.

The Jesuit Social Services analysis of the ABS *Prisoners in Australia* reports shows that the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australian prisons has increased by 74 percent over the past decade. Nearly two in every five 18-24 year olds in prison are Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders. Indigenous people are 15 times more likely to be in prison than non-Indigenous people.

To put this in perspective, Indigenous people make up just 3 percent of the population. Yet they represent more than a quarter (27 percent) of the prison population. In the Northern Territory, the rate is much higher: an astounding 85 percent of prisoners are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Australia’s incarceration rates of Indigenous people are the highest in the world.

Indigenous people die in Australian jails at a rate higher than that experienced by Black South Africans under apartheid.