In the early evening of 21 May, Kumanjayi Langdon, an artist, was arrested under the Northern Territory’s “paperless arrest” laws. Handcuffed in public, Kumanjayi was put into a cage in the back of a police van and taken to a prison watch-house. Detained in a cell without charge, he was found dead later that evening.

The “paperless arrest” laws, introduced in December 2014, give police the power to detain a person, without charge, for up to four hours – longer if they are deemed intoxicated – on the suspicion that they might commit any number of minor offences. 

Investigating the death of Kumanjayi, NT coroner Greg Cavanagh reported that his repeated requests to see a doctor were ignored. Commenting on the impact of the laws, Cavanagh said, “It is no coincidence that just five months after the ‘paperless arrest’ laws were introduced, the first person to die being held in custody … is an Aboriginal man”. He described the laws as “manifestly unfair” and called for their repeal. 

A High Court challenge to the laws was dismissed on 11 November. Community lawyers at the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) argued that the laws give police the power to impose extrajudicial punishment at their discretion.

“The High Court has found that the law is valid, but that doesn’t mean it is a good, effective or just law”, the principal legal officer at NAAJA, Jonathan Hunyor, told Red Flag. “It remains a bad law … not least because it is leading to more Aboriginal people being locked up.

“Unsurprisingly, the weight of the law has been felt overwhelmingly by Aboriginal people. In the first seven months of operation, the law was used to lock up 1295 people. Over 70 percent of those people were Aboriginal.”

In the moments leading up to his arrest, the coroner said that Kumanjayi was “an old man minding his own business”. His crime was being Aboriginal. 

Describing a divided society, Cavanagh said: “The new laws create a system where a large portion of the population drinks freely in pubs and taverns using sections of the public footpath that have been fenced off for outdoor drinking. Just one street away, Aboriginal people (some of whom have come in from remote communities that are under federal fiat banning alcohol …) are being detained for drinking in a designated public place, even if they are enjoying peaceful, quiet time with family and friends.

“In my view, unless the paperless arrest laws are struck from the statute books, more and more disadvantaged Aboriginal people are at risk of dying in custody, and unnecessarily so.”

The Northern Territory government has rejected all calls to abolish the laws, which the NT attorney general commonly refers to as a “catch and release” scheme.