Consultant Social Worker/Criminologist

2The boundaries of what criminologists study need to be somewhat flexible to allow the discipline to play an appropriate part in the evolving concerns of the community in which it operates. Clearly, deaths in custody occur within the boundaries of the present criminal justice system and, therefore, it is proper that criminologists and others study the effectiveness and efficiency of custodial programmes (as part of the criminal justice system). For example, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has a role to monitor deaths in custody and has been doing so since the tabling in 1991 of the final report of the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths In Custody (RCIADIC) (see Dalton, 1998, 1997a, 1997b). The RCIADIC recommended (No.41) that the AIC assume this role. The regular reports of the AIC provide a comprehensive analysis of the trends in deaths in custody since the RCIADIC. Such study is aimed at attempting to find out why prisoners die in custody and identify ways of reducing the tragedies that such deaths represent. The present boundaries may, however, reduce the scope of such inquiries because much of the work in the 1970s and 1980s has been directed towards developing a statistical profile (an archetype) of those who may be considered at risk from suicide. Other forms of death in custody have received little attention. It is thought that