An examination of recent suicides in remote Australia: further information from the Kimberley

Aboriginal suicide has emerged as an issue of public concern only within the recent past. Within the last decade there has been a substantial increase from levels that were previously low. Under the shadow of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody these increases, involving primarily young adult males, raise serious questions. Two years ago the author examined a series of suicides that had occurred in one area of remote Aboriginal Australia, the Kimberly region of Western Australia. This paper examines suicides that have occurred in the following two years, with comparisons both with the previous suicides, and with a group of age-matched Aborigines from the general Kimberly population drawn from a random sample survey.