Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

investigations, and May 1996 (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social JusticeCommissioner 1996 page 199). Five of these deaths were in institutional settings and tenwere a result of police interventions (nine in police pursuits and one 16 year old youthshot dead after threatening police with a replica pistol).A review of those deaths by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social JusticeCommissioner found extensive breaches of Royal Commission recommendations inrelation to Indigenous young people, many relating to the circumstances leading up to theuse of custody. Perhaps most disturbing was the finding that, as the Indigenous juvenilepopulation increases proportionate to the non-Indigenous youth population, the likelihoodof increasing numbers of Indigenous young people dying in custody will also increaseunless significant reforms are introduced (1996 page 199).ConclusionsThe issues affecting Indigenous young people in the juvenile justice system havebeen identified and demonstrated time and time again. It is not surprising that Indigenousorganisations and commentators draw attention to the historical continuity in the removalof Indigenous children and young people when the key issues in relation to juvenilejustice have already been identified for some time yet the problem of over-representationappears to be deepening.The issues relating to policing and the courts have been well documented sinceEggleston’s pioneering work in 1976. Problems with Aboriginal/police relations acrossmost of Australia were well documented in the early 1980s (ADB 1982, Roberts et al1986) and in national inquiries and regional studies in the late 1980s and early 1990s(International Commission of Jurists 1990, National Report 1991, HREOC 1991). Thefailure to accord fair treatment to Indigenous young people in diversionary options suchas police cautioning or less intrusive methods such as summons and court attendancenotices has been demonstrated since the mid-1980s (Cunneen and Robb 1987, Broadhurstet al 1991, Wilkie 1991). The failure of other diversionary schemes such panels to meetthe needs of Indigenous youth has been described since the end of the 1980s (Gale et al1990, Broadhurst et al 1991, Wilkie 1991).Failure to comply with police instructions regarding the presence of a parent oradult, failure to notify Aboriginal Legal Services and the inadequacy of police guidelinesin regulating police behaviour have been commented upon periodically for a decade anda half (for example, Rees 1982, Cunneen 1990, Warner 1994).All of these issues were addressed comprehensively in the findings andrecommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. TheRoyal Commission went on to address the need for self-determination and negotiatedsolutions between governments and Indigenous people in its National Report in 1991.New legislation has done little to confront the issues which affect Indigenous young