ABSTRACT
The relationship between Indigenous women and police intersects with processes of both colonisation and gender. There are commonalities in the way Indigenous women are treated by police with the way other women are treated, particularly where they share backgrounds of socioeconomic disadvantage and cultural and ethnic difference from the dominant society. Indigenous women also have much higher reported rates of victimisation for violent crime than do non-Indigenous women. Based on Western Australian police reports, Aboriginal women are 10.7 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than non-Aboriginal women. The issue of Indigenous women in police custody and the reasons for their apprehension has been largely ignored in the literature. The deaths of Indigenous women in custody highlight some of the specific issues surrounding the policing of Indigenous women, particularly those relating to the use of custody for minor public order offences.
