Victoria's public intoxication reform cuts custody deaths to zero
Victoria's reform stopped treating public intoxication as a crime. It has ended custody deaths for that reason.
When Victoria stopped treating public intoxication as a crime in 2023, police shifted their approach. They moved from locking people up to offering health care.
The result was clear: no one has died in custody for being drunk in public. A new Monash University study found arrests for other crimes in just 5 per cent of intoxication cases overall.
Police now offer transport with consent to hospital or a sobering-up facility instead of jail. The reform has not fixed historical bias.
Aboriginal people remain twice as likely to be arrested as the general population. The policy change came from the 2017 death of Tanya Day.
She was a Yorta Yorta woman. She died after hitting her head in a concrete cell at Castlemaine Police Station.
This happened after her arrest for public drunkenness. The report recommends setting up oversight to watch police decisions and connecting people with long-term support.
This includes housing and mental health care.
Why it mattersA health-based approach to public intoxication reduces deaths and stops jailing people for being drunk. But it needs new services and watching for bias. This way it works fairly for everyone.
AustraliaVictoria's reform is a national model for decriminalising public intoxication and addressing over-policing of First Nations communities, though the state still needs to fix the disparity in who gets arrested.
✓ Claims checked against the source. checked 3 h ago
Open this story in InSnip →
