An Overview of Indigenous Suicide

Abstract

The public understanding of Aboriginal suicide has been shaped by specific events, in particular the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The publicity surrounding the Commission contributed to a widespread view that Aboriginal suicide is common, most often occurring in custody, with indigenous prisoners being at much greater risk than non-indigenous inmates. While the Royal Commission demonstrated that these perceptions are incorrect, the images are tenacious and persistent. In fact, overall, indigenous Australians die by suicide at a rate very similar to that of the wider Australian population, the ratio of age-adjusted rates for deaths attributed to suicide for indigenous versus non-indigenous populations for the period 1990-1992 (excluding Queensland which did not, at that time, identify Aboriginality on death certificates) being 0.9 (Moller, 1996).