The injustice and torture that are part of First Peoples incarceration in Queensland are a blight on the state.

Incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in Queensland and Australia

Update 2026
Deaths in Custody
In December 2025, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) released a report showing there were 113 deaths in custody across the country recorded in 2024-2025, including 33 First Nations people. https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-12/sr57_deaths_in_custody_in_australia_2024-25.pdf

This is too many deaths in custody across the board but it is a shocking statistic for First Nations people, who make up only approximately 4 per cent of the Australian population but just under a third (29 per cent) of the deaths in custody. It is this disproportional rate of Indigenous death, and of incarceration, that was investigated by the Royal Commission into Indigenous Deaths in Custody, 35 years ago.

According to the 2025 AIC report, 2024-2025 saw ‘the largest number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody since 1979-1980 [when the national monitoring program began] and almost double the average since 1989-90.’ The total number of Indigenous deaths in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, as of the end of 2025, was 617. Many of the Royal Commission’s recommendations have not been implemented. Meanwhile the number of deaths increases.

Commenting on the figures, the CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Nerita Waight, said, “It is an extremely painful truth that right now we are experiencing the highest rate of Aboriginal deaths in custody in over four decades. The reality is that police and prison custody is not a safe place for Aboriginal people. This is what the royal commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found in 1991” (quoted in The Guardian, 10 December 2025).

Incarceration

In one of its first acts upon taking government, the new Queensland parliament introduced its Adult Crime Adult Time bill (The Making Queensland Safer Bill), offering 3 working days for submissions (a vehicle for community consultation). This bill contravenes Australia’s commitments under the international human rights system and is incompatible with Queensland’s own Human Rights Act.

Despite the election campaign focussing on containing youth crime, actual youth crime in Queensland was at historic lows on a per capita basis. Since 2012/13 the number of youth offenders has reduced by 18% according to police data. Much of the crime, however, is concentrated in particular places (e.g. Townsville) meaning that peoples experience of crime is heightened in those areas.

In 2020 the Queensland Productivity Commission found that ‘the rate of imprisonment – the number of prisoners per head of population – has increased by more than 160 per cent since 1992.’ That rate has only increased further in the subsequent years. An Indigenous man in Queensland ‘has an almost 30 per cent chance of being imprisoned by 25.’ The Productivity Commission’s inquiry found that increasing imprisonment reduces rather than improves community safety.  https://apo.org.au/node/273991

In Queensland, ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people [10 – 17] are 26 times more likely to be in detention compared to non-Indigenous young people’ (Queensland Family and Child Commission, 2026).  Queensland has the highest rate of Indigenous youth incarceration in the country (with the Northern Territory a close second, AIHW 2025). For young people in Queensland, rates of repeat offending within 12 months are over 70 per cent. Moreover, this rate is increasing and is the highest recidivism rate in the country (Queensland Family and Child Commission, 2026). There is ‘a rising trend of increasing recidivism…’. See the REPORT.

This terrible cycle of repeat offending indicates that the prison system is not working in Queensland (or more broadly across the country). Crushing ever more people into overcrowded, understaffed prisons does not make Queenslanders safe. A substantial proportion of people are in prison for minor offences (such as unpaid traffic fines, less serious drug use, or situations linked to homelessness or poverty). Yet prisons work as a path to more serious criminality. Four months in prison for an unpaid traffic fine is enough for a person to lose his or her job and their ability to pay rent, if they had a home. It can break up a family.

Prisons are providing the opposite of rehabilitation. Billions of dollars are spent on prisons that entrench disadvantage and criminalise poverty in Indigenous and other communities.

They can break a spirit and catapult people into a negative spiral.

Upon release there is no system of transition back into normal life. Prisoners, including people who were violent offenders and have mental health issues, are released generally with no support or supervision. If they have no family or friends to help them upon release, they are on their own. See REPORT HERE

We need a justice system, including prisons, that is seriously committed to prevention, to properly resourced prisons, rehabilitation programs and strong transition or reintegration programs when people are released.

For First Nations people, First Nations communities could be empowered to actively support prevention and re-integration. According to the Queensland Productivity Commission ‘longterm structural and economic reforms that devolve responsibility and accountability to Indigenous communities are required. Independent oversight of reforms is essential. These reforms, if adopted, could reduce the prison population by up to 30 per cent and save around $300 million per year in prison costs, without compromising community safety.’

There are examples in Australia and overseas of more restorative justice approaches that are more humane, more effective and far more cost effective. See the 2020 Queensland Productivity Commission Report for more concrete details: https://apo.org.au/node/273991