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Although Giorgio Agamben figures prominently in research examining sovereign state-based exclusion, his theories are marked by two commonly identified limitations. The absolute nature of Agamben's conceptualization of exclusion diminishes meaningful minority resistance, and his disembedded account of excised peoples as homo sacer hides the common racial basis of sovereign violence. Consequently, this article draws on the work of Achille Mbembé and Alexander G. Weheliye to reframe Agamben's sovereign exclusion as an everyday and contested process that is inseparable from the racial production of minorities. This reconceptualised framework is used to demonstrate how police violence towards Black Americans in the United States of America and the death of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in custody in Australia is orientated towards the production of political communities. I argue that these cases of racial exclusion treat Bla(c)k people as homo sacer to define the colonial sovereignstate polities of the US and Australia in covert racial terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1990 and the time of writing, 1,849 people have died in police custody or otherwise following police contact in England and Wales, with people from racially minoritised backgrounds over-represented in use of force and restraint related deaths. Drawing upon research undertaken by the authors, alongside bereaved families, this paper approaches these deaths as a form of institutional killings, surfacing the norms, cultures and values which systematically omit, obfuscate and mystify the violence of police action and inaction that eventuates these deaths. We contend that the police use of lethal force is therefore embedded and enmeshed within the processes, attitudes and behaviours of the police as an institution – both historically and in the present – which shapes how those killed encounter the police, how their deaths are (re)presented and how their bereaved families experience the processes which follow. The article argues that these processes follow a predictable pattern, with a similar lack of accountability also observable across other aspects of the criminal justice sector in relation to state deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forensic medicine has traditionally been understood as constituting a tension between medical and legal roles: a care-custody paradox. Rather than reinforcing this paradox, however, in this paper I will draw upon a study of Healthcare Professionals working within police custody suites in England in order to show the ways that they coproduce [Jasanoff, S., 2004. States of knowledge: the co-production of science and social order. London: Routledge] their work with the aim of simultaneously meeting the requirements of both their police (for instance PACE codes) and healthcare (for instance the Nursing and Midwifery Code of Practice) responsibilities. Focusing on acts of 'mundane care' [Brownlie, J. and Spandler, H., 2018. Materialities of mundane care and the art of holding one's own. Sociology of health and illness, 40 (2), 256–269], the typification of detainees and the use of detention cells as risk management tools, I will show that rather than undergoing an existential crisis, Healthcare Professionals mobilise coproduced practices in order to perform their work successfully, thereby further enabling police and detention officers to achieve their custody objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a framework to think sociologically about the containment of activism in contexts of state racism. It argues that normal everyday practices of the police and judicial system have mechanisms which contain challenges to their authority. It shows how state racism is embedded within the criminalisation of black people and enacted through policing. The analysis focuses on Scotland's first black death in police custody and the campaign formed by his family to establish the circumstances of the death. Sheku Bayoh died shortly after being arrested and restrained by up to nine police officers in Kirkcaldy, a small town on the east coast of Scotland, in May 2015. I pay attention to the role played by racism in the media's framing of Sheku's death, common in explaining deaths of black people at the hands of the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a critical juncture in carceral politics globally and in Australia, the rapid responses to the COVID-19 pandemic reveal the capacity for timely, systemic change in the justice system. Despite international best practice and the Black Lives Matter movement, this comment considers how the pandemic was a missed opportunity for governments to re-imagine the justice system to end the over-incarceration and deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Australian governments' carceral, punitive policing and prison COVID-19 responses have disproportionately caused harm to, discriminated against and breached the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; the full consequences of which are yet to be realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several commissions of inquiry have recommended the reform or abolition of laws that criminalise the use of offensive language in Australia. These criminal offences have been linked to the over-policing and deaths in custody of Indigenous Australians. Australian state and territory governments have not only ignored these recommendations; they have also added new weapons to the police officer's arsenal to control and punish swearing in public. Through an analysis of several case studies sourced from coronial inquiries and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, this article argues that there is a need for urgent reform of laws that criminalise offensive language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2018, the bodies of two Aboriginal boys were pulled from the Swan River in Perth, Australia. Trisjack Simpson, 17, and Chris Drage, 16, had run to the river as police pursued them on foot. They had been seen jumping fences. Their story is emblematic of how youth and crime are constructed in relation to each other; in particular, how certain young bodies come to be known as criminal - or, as more criminal than others. In this 'Contemporary Comment', the story of the boys provides a focus for critically interrogating the ways we conceive juvenile crime in Australia. It argues that mainstream discourses of young people and crime are often based on, and further entrench, a colonial ideology; and that radical reform of practices is both possible and needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Institute of Criminology ('AIC') is the Australian Government's designated monitoring body responsible for reporting on deaths in custody in Australia under the National Deaths in Custody Program ('NDICP'). Although the Border Crossing Observatory1 has recorded the deaths of 77 persons in Australian immigration custody since 2000, these deaths are not included in NDICP annual reporting. In Australia, official deaths in custody monitoring and reporting have only accounted for those people who have died while in the custodial settings of prison, juvenile detention, and police custody (Lyneham, Joudo-Larson and Beacroft 2010). Official monitoring and reporting of deaths in custody in Australia does not consider, account for or report on deaths that occur in Australian onshore and offshore immigration detention centres, or deaths that occur while authorities attempt to take a suspected unlawful non-citizen into immigration custody, either in the process of offshore interdiction or on the mainland. We argue that deaths within these immigration custodial settings should be included under existing arrangements for monitoring and reporting in the interests of accountability and equity under the Australian border control regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines mortality in municipal and county detention and corrections facilities in a Midwestern county from 1988 to 2009. It is a follow-up to an earlier study that covered the previous 20 years (1968-1987) of inmate mortality, thus providing data for approximately four decades from which to identify those factors associated with inmate death, and how they may have changed over time. Although no single factor proved highly predictive of sudden death, certain variables and combinations of variables seemed more associated with in-custody death than others. Findings point toward the potential of improved intervention strategies for reductions in the mortality rate behind bars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in cocaine use in young people has been reflected in an increase in the number of deaths in which cocaine is identified post mortem. This increase is evident in relation to police custody deaths. In the current analysis, 43 drug-related deaths in custody are considered with cocaine identified in 24 of the post mortem examinations. The article examines the characteristics of these deaths, with particular attention paid to tire method and related reasons for drug consumption. Crucially, these deaths contrast with national drug mortality data as they generally involve cocaine consumed by swallowing at the point of arrest. A total of 18 of 24 cocaine deaths involved oral ingestion with at least 15 of these possible attempts at drug concealment occurring at the point of arrest. There is likely to he a considerable risk of loss of life among street-level drug dealers who swallow to avoid drug detection; the article examines the risks associated with this behaviour and possible preventative strategies. INSETS: Case Study 1;Case Study 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]