On Sunday, four trial sites were announced as part of the government’s commitment to decriminalise being drunk in a public place, something Ms Day’s children have advocated for since their mother’s death.
The regional Victorian sites will be in Greater Shepparton and Castlemaine — the latter was where Ms Day sustained injuries in a police cell that she later died from in December 2017.
“Our mum’s case shows that police cells are unsafe places, and that’s why no person should ever be locked up in a police cell for being drunk in a public place,” the Day family said.
“The trial sites are an opportunity to test the long overdue public health response to public drunkenness. And it should not involve police.
“Police shouldn’t play any role in a public health response, given that whenever police have broad powers it opens the way for discriminatory policing, too often experienced by Aboriginal people like our mum.
“For these reforms to work, there must be a full transition away from the current criminal law approach to a genuine and best practice public health one that does not involve police.”
Ms Day was arrested for public drunkenness and taken to Castlemaine Police Station after falling asleep on a train from Echuca to Melbourne.
A coronial inquest found police did not carry out the required checks while she was in the cell and it took three hours after she hit her head on the concrete wall of the cell for an ambulance to be called.
One of the recommendations from the inquest was for public drunkenness to be decriminalised, some 30 years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody called for its abolition.
The trials are the first step towards an amendment to the law for public drunkenness to be treated as a health issue and not a crime.
The model will promote therapeutic and culturally safe pathways to assist people who are drunk, including more outreach services, training for first responders and new sobering up services.
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