“All this pain, I am feeling inside. Eight months in the system has eaten my pride. … I am stuck in Don Dale, when I get out, I promise I won’t fail.”
These powerful words are from emerging hip hop artist Joseph Ebborn, who raps using the name JRAE. He wrote them while in Don Dale, the infamous juvenile jail in Darwin. Joseph, who is now 19, spent most of his teens locked up. He had a traumatic childhood and was placed in out-of-home care — treading the well-worn path leading to incarceration by age 13. He didn’t even have a bank account when he was released in March 2021. But he did have his writing, which he put to music, and talent. He aims to break the cycle of incarceration.
For many young people tangled up with child removal and youth detention, the cycle continues — eventually leading to adult prison. Almost 600 kids aged 10 to 13 years are jailed in Australia every year. First Nations children comprise 65% of this younger group. For Indigenous children, the impact of invasion, dispossession and loss of culture is not history — it is lived experience as they struggle with the legacy of generations of state perpetrated trauma. Once inside the brutal detention regime, children are re-traumatised by constant surveillance, strip searches, physical restraints, isolation and lockdowns. It’s like struggling in quicksand for many trying to break free.
A familiar political cycle. In 2016, the ABC aired an explosive Four Corners story which revealed the shocking reality of what was happening inside Don Dale. (For more info, read Freedom Socialist Organiser, “Abuse of Aboriginal Kids sparks mass protests,” at socialism.com.) This sparked mass outrage and a wave of angry protests. Under pressure, the Northern Territory (NT) and federal governments feigned shock. They convened the Royal Commission into Protection and Detention of Children in the NT to provide the appearance of doing something.
The recommendations were released sixteen months later. Among them, close Don Dale, raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, and provide necessary social supports for young people and their families. It also reprised key recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, including imprisonment as a last resort.
The Territory government implemented some of the easier recommendations in 2018, but didn’t wait a year before beginning to wind them back!
The August 2020 Northern Territory election was a law-and-order contest between the Country Liberals and Labor parties with each pledging to be the toughest. Labor won and launched a crackdown. Youth detention almost doubled. New laws made it much harder for young people to get bail. The government will also spend $2.5 million to re-open abandoned blocks in Don Dale, preparing for an anticipated increase in youth detention.
In December 2021, the Indigenous community launched weekly protests demanding Don Dale be closed. Larrakia elder, June Mills, vowed, “we’re not putting up with it anymore.”
Criminalisation and abuse of children is not confined to the NT. In Western Australia more than 250 former inmates of the Banksia Hill Detention Centre are pursuing a class action and using the case to rally grass-roots community support. The centre, which incarcerates girls and boys, routinely uses solitary confinement. In February 2022, the Perth Children’s Court slammed conditions inside the centre as dehumanising.
Don’t incarcerate. All across the country there is a failure to adequately support families, an acute housing crisis, racist over-policing, and laws criminalising addiction and poverty.
Unfair bail laws, which disproportionately impact poor and vulnerable communities, are common. They have a terrible impact on young people — disrupting lives, especially of those who cannot make bail and are remanded and locked up. While awaiting trial they are denied access to education and other support programs available to those who have been sentenced. Demanding urgent change to Victorian bail laws is a priority campaign for the Indigenous Social Justice Association – Melbourne in the lead-up to the November state election.
Prior to the Covid pandemic, up to 63% of all young people aged from 10 to 17, held in detention on any given night, were on remand. More than half were Indigenous while 78% of all girls locked up had not been sentenced. Since the onset of the pandemic there has been a drop in unsentenced children held in detention. In some parts of Australia, more kids have been allowed to live in the community while waiting for their court case. This shows it has always been possible. The reduction in numbers of young people detained on remand must not be a temporary measure.
For imprisonment to become a last resort, it is a matter of political will and resourcing. Needed is a huge injection of funding to culturally appropriate grassroots programs. For First Nations youth, community-controlled programs are integral to building the pride and resilience needed to heal intergenerational trauma. More funding is also needed for youth programs run by Pacifika, South Sudanese and other communities where kids are disproportionately targeted.
Raise the age. In most countries the age of criminal responsibility is 14. But not in Australia! Despite widespread opposition and international condemnation, children as young as 10 continue to be jailed. Only the Australian Capital Territory has committed to address this, with all other states and territories still refusing to budge.
It is hard to find a single expert in child and adolescent health and wellbeing who does not back raising the age of criminal responsibility. In December 2021, public health organisations issued a powerful open letter making the case for change. But there is plenty of opposition from the usual quarters, with police and their unions dead set against the idea.
The campaign to raise the age to at least 14 is gathering steam around the country. Hundreds of thousands have already signed the petition hosted by the Human Rights Law Centre to keep kids in the community. Add your name at raisetheage.org.au.
It’s a chasm, not a gap. In Closing the Gap, the federal government’s plan to reduce First Nations disadvantage, a new goal is to reduce the rate of Aboriginal young people in detention by 30% by 2031. Yet, this government cannot even raise the age of criminal responsibility to align with other countries.
Is it any surprise that year after year the government’s annual Closing the Gap report card shows that it fails to meet almost all of the very modest targets set?
Locking up kids who need housing, education, healthcare and culturally appropriate support services is a crime! And federal, state and territory governments are all repeat offenders. It’s time to break this cycle of criminalising poor and vulnerable youth.
Alison Thorne is a founding member of Indigenous Social Justice Association – Melbourne. Contact her at alison.thorne@ozemail.com.au to get involved in the bail laws campaign.
