AMA calls for governments to implement royal commission recommendations on Aboriginal deaths in custody

The AMA says policy and legislative reform must occur to address ‘disproportionately high rates of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’. Photograph: Prisma by Dukas/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

The Australian Medical Association is calling on governments to divert people away from incarceration and implement the recommendations of the 1991 Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission.

The AMA has also reiterated its call for states and territories to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, particularly due to the disproportionate impact on Indigenous people.