Calls for death in custody inquiry
The Deaths in Custody Watch Committee in Brisbane says the Queensland Government should fully investigate the circumstances of the death of a young Aboriginal man in an Ipswich prison.
The 25-year-old man reportedly committed suicide in the Borallon Correctional Centre late last month.
Spokesperson Sam Watson (pictured) says if prison staff failed their duty of care to the man, they should be held criminally accountable.
Sam Watson:
We just believe that this is another classic case of a death in custody that should have been avoided. The death should not have happened. If this young man had been responded to, if this young man had been supported and cared for in a proper way, he'd still be alive. This is, again, yet another death in custody that we should not have to be dealing with. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and the community of this young man.
Voice ends.
Mr Watson says this could have been avoided if governments had implemented more of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Sam Watson:
The Royal Commission handed down findings back in 1991. The Royal Commission made 339 recommendations. Each time that we encounter the next Aboriginal death in custody, we find that critical recommendations from the group of 339 have been breached, ignored [or] totally disregarded to the absolute detriment of the Aboriginal person involved.
Voice ends.
Queensland Indigenous deaths in custody campaigners held a meeting two days after the death of the man in Brisbane on Friday, October 28.
NIRS journalist Warren Barnsley spoke to Sam Watson before the meeting - click here to download in mp3 format.
Authorities are currently investigating the death.
Meanwhile, Mr Watson says he also does not accept the recent findings of a coronial inquest into the death of another Aboriginal man in a Brisbane jail.
State Coroner Michael Barnes released his findings recently, which found there was nothing prison staff did to cause the death of 18-year-old Sheldon Currie in February last year.
Mr Currie, from Inala in Brisbane's south-west, was found unconscious in a prison cell at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre and died four days later of severe liver failure linked to hepatitis.
Sam Watson says the inquest findings will be challenged.
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