5 Criminal justice system Australian Human Rights Commission Report title October 2022 Relevant provisions of the CAT: Articles 2, 11 and 16. 5.1 First Nations Peoples 62. First Nations peoples continue to be significantly overrepresented in prisons in Australia. Reasons for over-incarceration include both legal and policy factors, and socio-economic factors such as cultural displacement, trauma and grief, alcohol and other drug misuse, cognitive disabilities and poor health and living conditions.60 Institutional racism, and a ‘legacy of dispossession, marginalisation and exclusion have created conditions in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experience serious and multiple forms’ of disadvantage and inequality.61 In order to reach a solution to over-incarceration, it is necessary to attend to the root causes of First Nations inequality in a comprehensive manner, which involves addressing factors both within, and beyond, the justice system. 63. Although First Nations peoples make up 3.2% of the total population,62 they constitute 30% of the prison population.63 First Nations women are the fastest growing prisoner population – and they are 19 times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be in prison.64 Almost half (49%) of the young people in juvenile detention on an average day in 2020–21 were First Nations children and young people.65 64. Due to the over-representation of First Nations peoples in the criminal justice system, First Nations peoples are more likely to die in police or prison custody compared to the general (non-prison) population.66 In the years since the landmark report of the Royal Commission into Indigenous Deaths in Custody in 1991, which first highlighted the extent of this issue, there have been a further 517 deaths in custody that have been identified as First Nations peoples.67 Many of these deaths were found in inquests to be preventable. 65. The Commission welcomes the Partnership Agreement in 2019 between the Coalition Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations and all Australian Governments (Partnership Agreement).68 Parties to the Partnership Agreement have committed to reducing the rate of First Nations adults held in incarceration by at least 15% by 2031 and reducing the rate of First Nations children (10–17 years) in detention by at least 30% by 2031. The Commission also welcomes funding provided by the Australian Government to meet these justice targets,69 and emphasises the importance of 15