Murder rate of First Nations women eight times higher than for non-Indigenous counterparts
Murder rates for Indigenous women are eight times higher than for their nonIndigenous counterparts, a Senate committee has been told.
But death rates among the cohort could be even higher, as the Australian Crime Institute only factors in cases of murder and not manslaughter.
The data was shared during hearings of a parliamentary inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children.
A Senate committee is looking at the systems and circumstances that led to those deaths and disappearances, as well as reviewing current and historical practices used to investigate the murders.
Homicide rates are declining in Australia, but murder rates for Indigenous women are not following the same trajectory, crime institute deputy director Rick Brown said.
“It shows a very clear picture of systemic disadvantage no matter what indicator you take … Indigenous people have poorer outcomes,” Brown told the committee.
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Senior members of the Australian federal police told the inquiry that police should be treating all members of the community the same, regardless of whether or not they are Indigenous.
There were cultural literacy training courses in place to ensure officers knew why Indigenous people may feel uncomfortable or unsafe around police, assistant commissioner Peter Crozier said.
Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe, a Djab Wurrung, Gunnai and Gunditjmara woman, responded that the treatment of Aboriginal people by police was “not getting better”.
“This is not an Aboriginal issue,” she said. “The system is against Aboriginal people.”
Crozier said he accepted police should improve, noting a one-size-fitsall approach would not necessarily work in all communities.