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Eight systems, counted eight ways

Complaints per 100,000 people and deaths in police custody, state by state.

Australia has no national police force and no national complaints body. Each state and territory runs its own police service and its own oversight commission, and each decides for itself what counts as a complaint.

445
deaths in police custody recorded, 2007-08 to 2024-25
Report on Government Services 2026, table 6A.5
93
of those recorded as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander
20.9% of all recorded deaths in custody
8
separate state and territory police services
each with its own oversight body and its own counting rules

Every state and territory

Read the complaints column carefully. It ranges from 6.3 per 100,000 people in Victoria to 97.6 in the Northern Territory, a difference of more than fifteen times. That gap is far too large to be a difference in police behaviour. It mostly reflects what each jurisdiction records as a complaint, how easy it is to make one, and which body receives it. A high figure here can indicate a system that captures complaints well. Treat this as a map of eight different counting systems, not as a ranking of conduct.
Sort byComplaints per 100kDeaths in custodyAboriginal or Torres Strait IslanderState or territory
#State or territory Complaints per 100,000 people Deaths in police custody Of which Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander
1 Northern Territory 97.6 25 18
2 South Australia 87.9 40 10
3 New South Wales 61.5 125 24
4 Tasmania 52.6 13 0
5 Queensland 29.2 104 18
6 Australian Capital Territory 11.8 4 0
7 Western Australia 7.0 62 19
8 Victoria 6.3 72 4

Deaths in police custody

Across 2007-08 to 2024-25, 445 deaths in police custody were recorded nationally. 93 of them, 20.9%, involved a person recorded as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

That share is a share of deaths, not a rate. Turning it into a rate needs the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander share of the population as a denominator, and we do not yet hold a population series we can recompute from and check. Until we do, we publish the counts as the publisher gives them and leave the rate alone rather than deriving one we cannot stand behind.

How oversight works

Each jurisdiction has its own integrity or anti-corruption commission, and their powers differ. Some investigate police conduct directly; others largely oversee investigations the police carry out themselves. A complaint usually starts with the police service or with that state's commission, and which one depends on how serious the allegation is. Each state page names the body and links to it.

Sources. Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision, Report on Government Services 2026, Part C Section 6 (Police Services). Licensed CC BY 4.0. Complaints are table 6A.11, deaths in police custody are table 6A.5. Rates per 100,000 people are the publisher's own calculation, not ours. Deaths totals are sums of the published annual figures.

Data last refreshed , covering 2015-16 to 2024-25. Every figure on this page is recomputed from the source datasets, not edited by hand. Found something wrong? Tell us.