Author
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
Publication Date
1989
Publisher
Australasian Legal Information Institute
URL
Description
This report is published as part of the online resource: "Indigenous Law Resources: Reconciliation and Social Justice Library". The synopsis for this report into the death into Malcolm Charles Smith is:
'The real horror story of Aboriginal Australia today is locked in police files and child welfare reports. It is a story of private misery and degradation, caused by a complex chain of historical circumstance, that continues into the present." (Kevin Gilbert. 1978, Living Black, Penguin Books, p.2.)
The story of Malcolm Charles Smith illustrates the truth of Kevin Gilbert's words. It is the story of a life destroyed, not by the misconduct of police and prison officers, but in large measure by the regular operation of the system of self-righteous, heartless and racist destruction of Aboriginal families that went on under the name of protection or welfare well into the second half of this century.