Transcript

SABRA LANE, PRESENTER: Tomorrow marks 25 years since the landmark Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody, which rewrote the rulebook on the handling of Indigenous prisoners. The report made 340 recommendations after a series of tragic deaths that stirred national shame. But a quarter of a century later, more Indigenous people than ever are being locked up and dying behind bars. As Lauren Day reports, the families of several young Indigenous people who were born and died in custody after that historic report are calling for immediate action, and a warning: this story contains images of people who have died.

EDDIE BENNELL, CHAIR, NAT. ABORIGINAL CONSULTATIVE COMM.: The whole policy of the Australian Government, through the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, is to retard the progress of the Aboriginal people.

LAUREN DAY, REPORTER: As a little girl, Maxine Bennell watched her father Eddie, the chair of the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee, fight for Aboriginal rights and against deaths in custody. By the time of his death in 1991, months before the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its final report, he'd thought his job was done.

MAXINE BENNELL, MOTHER: I believe that my dad would have thought that this would have been all finished, you know, looked after properly, in regards to that the royal commission was happening and hopefully less deaths in custody.

LAUREN DAY: But he was wrong. 20 years later, Maxine buried her son Jayden after he died in prison.

MAXINE BENNELL: I think my father would have felt very, um, angry, and I think my dad really never would have imagined it would have impacted his grandchildren. Um, never.

LAUREN DAY: The royal commission had recommended prisons be screened to eliminate or reduce the potential for harm. There were at least half a dozen hanging points in the room where Jayden Bennell was found.

MAXINE BENNELL: I want no more kids to die in prison 'cause we don't have a death sentence in Australia. And I don't care what they do wrong, even if they are in there - no-one should either get their chance to kill themselves in times of sadness, in a split second thought - no-one should ever get that chance, because five minutes later, it's better.

LAUREN DAY: 20-year-old Jayden was in jail for stealing cars - a mandatory sentence under WA's three-strikes policy. Mandatory sentencing has been found to erode one of the three key principles of the royal commission: that imprisonment be used as a sanction of last resort. Instead, Jayden Bennell was part of a new generation of Indigenous people who've lived and died behind bars in the shadow of that historic document.

MAXINE BENNELL: What if I have another son who dies in prison because not one recommendation has been put into place? I don't - that is a real big fear.

I am the mother of a child named Julieka. The worst thing is that I know that she is no longer here with me. I still have no answers. I still don't know how or why she died.

SHAUN HARRIS, MISS DHU'S UNCLE: She was always happy. I can't remember seeing her angry or sad, you know? She's always with a smile on her face.

LAUREN DAY: Ms Dhu's face has become a symbol of the problem recognised before she was even born. In August, 2014 she was locked up at WA's South Hedland Police Station for unpaid fines. Two days later, she was dead from a fatal infection stemming from a cracked rib.

SHAUN HARRIS: Nobody deserves to die over $1,000 worth of fines, unpaid fines, let alone any amount of unpaid fines. It's a blatant breach of human rights. The whole system needs to be held accountable.

LAUREN DAY: Police took her to hospital three times in 48 hours, but no-one picked up the signs that she was dying, dismissing her as a junkie who was faking it. The inquest into her death has just wrapped up and her family are now anxiously waiting for answers.

SHAUN HARRIS: We don't want recommendations come out of an inquest that will not be acted upon, just as the recommendations actions from the royal commission, there were 339. Roughly about only 20 per cent have been implemented Australia-wide.

LAUREN DAY: Ms Dhu was born the year after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody released its final report. One of its recommendations: an ongoing amnesty for long outstanding unpaid fines arguably could have saved her life.

At the time of the commission's final report in 1991, Aboriginal people were eight times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Aboriginal people. They're now 15 times more likely. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men are twice as likely to be in prison than university. And despite representing only three per cent of the population, Indigenous Australians now make up 27 per cent of the prison population - almost double their representation in 1991.

HANNAH MCGLADE, DEATHS IN CUSTODY WATCH COMMITTEE: Incarceration has only increased, but what we've seen is the particular incarceration increasing of Aboriginal women. So Aboriginal women are now recognised as the fastest-growing prison population of Australia. In our state of West Australia, Aboriginal women are making up at least 50 per cent of the prison population and have done so for many years now.

LAUREN DAY: Aboriginal lawyer Hannah McGlade believes the royal commission's recommendations and principles have been forgotten.

HANNAH MCGLADE: Aboriginal people are a minority in the country and we rely on the good will of our fellow Australians to really stand with us and say we - you know, this has to stop and we have to treat each other as humans, as equal people with respect.

LAUREN DAY: Many of the 339 recommendations were designed to boost living conditions in Aboriginal communities and hand back decision-making to Indigenous people. Report after report has highlighted the gap is far from closing. And those who've lost relatives to the crisis identified a quarter of a century ago fear that unless those issues are addressed, a growing number of Aboriginal people will live and die behind bars.

SHAUN HARRIS: Julieka was not an animal. She was a 22-year-old woman, a young lady. And it doesn't matter that she was black or not. It's angering, very angering. We've had to hold our anger back and direct it to her cause, which is what we've done to our best. We will not stop fighting.

MAXINE BENNELL: I don't want anyone to feel the way I do. It is a horrible - I've not been able to move forward in three years. I've not been able to. Even my little sister says, "You're angry all the time," you know? Of course I'm angry. My son shouldn't be dead.

SABRA LANE: Lauren Day with that report.