Level 8

iii Factors underlying Indigenous arrest rates PREFACE Ten years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody the level of Aboriginal over-representation in Australian prisons is a continuing source of concern to both State and Federal Governments. If anything, that over-representation appears to be growing. In 1991 in NSW, for example, Indigenous Australians were nearly eight times more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to be in prison. By 1999, the level of Indigenous over-representation in NSW prisons had risen to almost ten times that of the non-Indigenous rate. In that year, persons of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent made up 15 per cent of the prison population despite making up only about two per cent of the total NSW adult population. Research recently conducted by Joanne Baker at the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research has shown that one of the main reasons for the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in NSW prisons is that they are arrested at much higher rates than non-Indigenous people. If we are to reduce the problem of over-representation it is critical to obtain better information on the reason for this state of affairs. The present report, prepared for the Bureau by Dr Boyd Hunter at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University, was designed with this in mind. Dr Hunter uses data from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey to identify key independent risk factors for Indigenous arrest. While data limitations preclude any definitive statement of the causal factors which lie behind the high rates of Indigenous arrest, Dr Hunter’s report provides promising leads in the search for these factors and promising new directions for policy