title: Mental health at the intersections: the impact of complex needs on police contact and custody for Indigenous Australian men.
abstract: Indigenous Australians experience significant social risk, vulnerability and disadvantage. Nowhere is this more starkly demonstrated than in the levels of contact that Indigenous Australians have with the criminal justice system, particularly the police. Utilizing a linked dataset of extant criminal justice, human and health service administrative data in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, this paper explores patterns of police contact and custody for a cohort of Indigenous males with complex needs. Four significant factors are identified that alone or in combination appear to impact on the frequency with which these men experience police contact and custody, including young age at first police contact, experiencing out of home care as a child, alcohol misuse, and limited locational mobility. Whilst it might be expected that the presence of mental ill-health and/or cognitive disability would be a key predictor of the frequency and intensity of police contact and custody, the findings suggest rather that the presence of multiple disadvantages beginning in the early years and compounding throughout individuals' lives, in which mental illness may or may not be a factor, is more significant than the presence of any one diagnosis in precipitating police contact and custody for this group.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Trofimovs
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. Electronic address: L.Dowse@unsw.edu.au.
authors.forename: Leanne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dowse
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003419:Crisis Intervention; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D035846:Law Enforcement; D008297:Male; D028642:Persons with Psychiatric Disorders; D008875:Middle Aged; D009517:New South Wales; D016495:Police; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology*; D035862:Vulnerable Populations / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Cognitive disability; Complex needs; Indigenous Australians; Mental disorders; Police contact; Police custody