Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia

Curfews directed against Aboriginal people were common in some areas until the early 1970s, and detention without cause and unprovoked physical attacks by the police also occurred.

[4] In 1972 the group wrote to the Australian government asking for a small amount of money to enable a roster of lawyers to be available to represent Aboriginal people locally.

[9] After missing a court date in connection with the matter, the boy, who had no previous convictions, had been arrested and held for several hours in a police cell.

[10] Peter Collins, director of the ALSWA at the time,[11] suggested that the charges were because the boy was Aboriginal, and that the same action would not have been taken against a "non-Aboriginal kid from an affluent Perth suburb with professional parents".

[13] The charges were subsequently dropped, and an order for legal costs of one thousand Australian dollars was made in the boy's favour.

[11] It also highlighted the frequency of Aboriginal children being incarcerated solely due to failure to meet the basic juvenile bail condition of a "responsible adult" being present into whose custody they could be released.

[14] Another case on which the ALSWA spoke out was the death in custody on 3 April 2009 of the Aboriginal community leader Mr. Ward, who was "a renowned artist and senior in customary law", as well as being chosen to represent his people on a mission to China.

After being arrested in Laverton, he died of heatstroke in a van driven by a private security firm, which had been the subject of complaints over several years previously, after the temperature around him reached between 50 and 56 °C (122 and 133 °F) on a journey of 380 kilometres (240 miles).