Incarceration in Australia Since 1967: Trends in the Over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (2022)

The purpose of this paper is to collate and present statistics from government databases and published research on trends in adult incarceration in Australia since the 1967 Referendum, which sought to give the Commonwealth Parliament power to make laws with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and to make it possible to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in national censuses. It provides a comparison of national incarceration rates within both the general adult population and the Indigenous adult population, and includes an overview of incarceration rates for different states and territories. Trends in the composition of the NSW Indigenous and non-Indigenous prison populations are also presented as a case study.