Ariel Bogle

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Christopher Knaus |Ariel Bogle

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains names of Indigenous Australians who have died. This story contains descriptions of self-harm and some readers might find it distressing. The minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, says she has raised the presence of hanging points in prisons “directly” with her colleagues after a Guardian Australia investigation last week.

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Christopher Knaus |Ariel Bogle

Michelle Rowland has described the “unacceptable” death toll linked to the continued presence of hanging points in Australian jails as “deeply concerning” and told state and territory governments to “review their practices”. The attorney general has also signalled she will push for accelerated justice reforms during upcoming meetings with her state and territory counterparts at the Standing Council of Attorneys-General forum.

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Christopher Knaus |Ariel Bogle

The former Labor senator and Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commissioner Patrick Dodson has condemned inaction on known hanging points as “totally unacceptable” and joined calls for national leadership on justice reform. Guardian Australia revealed last week that 57 Australians had died using hanging points that prison authorities knew about but failed to remove, often despite their use in repeated suicides and explicit warnings from coroners.

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ariel Bogle |Christopher Knaus

Warning: this story contains descriptions of self-harm and some readers might find it distressing. When Darren Brandon was detained at Melbourne assessment prison, a perfect storm of missed paperwork and a lack of clear intake procedure between police and the jail meant he was assessed as being low risk of self-harm. This could not have been further from the truth, according to his brother Steve. Darren lived with a serious brain injury after a motorcycle accident.

2 weeks ago | inkl.com | Ariel Bogle |Christopher Knaus

This could not have been further from the truth, according to his brother Steve. Darren lived with a serious brain injury after a motorcycle accident. It had left him with memory problems and bouts of depression. The family home where he lived had been sold after the death of his mother and Darren was between accommodation. “Everything in our family just went upside down,” Steve tells Guardian Australia.