Indigenous Australians are murdered and murder at a rate far higher than the non-Indigenous community and there's no clear explanation why.
Alcohol appears to play a role, featuring in about 70 per cent of incidents.
But even so, a new study by the Australian Institute of Criminology says Indigenous people are disproportionately represented as both victims and offenders.
In 2011-12, they comprised three per cent of the population but 13 per cent of homicide victims and 11 per cent of offenders - five times the rate of the non-Indigenous population.
Using data from the AIC's National Homicide Monitoring Program for the period 1989-2012, the AIC identified 6744 homicide incidents, with 1096 involving at least one Indigenous person.
There were 7217 victims, 951 of them indigenous. A total of 7599 offenders were identified, 1234 of them Indigenous.
Of the 765 incidents with an Indigenous victim and offender or offenders, 532 involved alcohol and 511 occurred in a domestic setting.
The AIC said there was currently limited research to explain the difference between the rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous homicide.
Different studies cite a range of factors that may increase the likelihood of involvement in violence for Indigenous people.
They include substance abuse, personal abuse such as sexual abuse as a child, housing mobility and social stressors such as witnessing violence, gambling addiction and mental illness.
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