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WARNING: This article discusses youth suicide.
The ‘hard crime’ policies are establishing vulnerable indigenous children for a life of suffering, says experts in legal and human rights.
The defenders of the first nations are so concerned about the panorama of youth justice that they have filed a complaint with the United Nations, saying that the lives of aboriginal children are at risk.
The lawyer and academic of Human Rights to Noongar, Hannah McGlade, has filed a complaint with the United Nations Committee about the elimination of racial discrimination, asking the UN to take urgent measures to protect the rights of children from the first nations.
The complaint, backed by the Center for Human Rights, documented racial discrimination and human rights violations of Australian federal, state and territorial governments against indigenous children.
The international law established by the UN Rights Committee says that 14 should be the minimum age of criminal responsibility.
But in almost all states and territories in Australia, children up to 10 years can be arrested, and in some jurisdictions, such as Queensland, they face a harder criminal justice system than adults.
“We know for medical experts, including the Medical Association of Australia, which is very harmful to the health of a child imprisoning them at such an early age since 10 years,” said the associated professor McGlade to NITV.
“This is very dangerous for children who are developing: their brains are still developing their neuronal pathways.
“We also know that many of the imprisoned children have disabilities, neurological disabilities in particular and imprisonment worsens that situation.
“It is not a therapeutic environment at all.
“We are damaging children for life and, in some cases, children are actually suicidating and ending their lives due to the trauma associated with imprisonment and death as a result of cruel and inhuman practices.”
The complaint occurs when the Queensland government seeks to expand its controversial legislation of “adult crime, adult time” with 20 additional crimes.
“What is happening is that states and territories are putting the truck in reverse,” said Dr. McGlade, an expert member of the UN Permanent Forum for indigenous problems.
“This approach is not only failing the aborigines and aboriginal children, but is failing in Australia.”
Queensland is adding a second section of laws to existing legislation, which was approved at the end of December, to cover crimes such as violation, attempted murder, fire and torture.
The liberal prime minister of the National Party, David Crisafulli, said the laws would lead to serious criminals before justice.
“We promised to restore security from our communities and continue delivering strong laws of youth crimes, that is exactly what we are doing,” Queensland told Parliament.
Multiple states and territories have recently tightened bail laws and introduced other legal changes to attack young criminals, a change that, according to legal, childish and human rights experts, will lead to an increase in indigenous imprisonment rates already high.
And, there is no evidence that the hardest sanctions make communities safer.
In 2023, the UN delivered a scathing evaluation of the detention and prison practices of Australia, including the treatment of young people, saying they were inhuman, degrading and, in some cases, they can be equivalent to torture.
Since that time, Victoria, Queensland, NSW and the northern territory have introduced even harder penalties for youth criminals and have made bail conditions more onerous, which led to a situation in which more than 80 percent of children arrested throughout the country are in preventive detention.
“Most people are probably not aware that most children in detention have not actually been convicted of a crime and are imprisoned because they are not receiving bail,” said Dr. McGlade.
“The bail laws are becoming more difficult to meet the conditions, and we do not have the options to help vulnerable children at risk of remaining in the community instead of being imprisoned.
“Then, prisons and youth detention centers are being filled when most children inside have not really found guilty of a crime.”
Maggie Munn, director of Justice of the first nations at the Center for Human Rights of Human Rights, said that Australian punitive laws and policies are feeding a mass imprisonment crisis.
“Instead of taking measures to stop these human rights violations, the governments of Australia are introducing and duplicating deeply punitive laws that will exacerbate the number of aboriginal children and islanders of the Strait of Towers in the Police and the cells of the prison,” said Maggie Munn.
“Our communities have solutions.
“For decades, aboriginal communities and islanders of the Torres Strait have implored governments to take real measures to reduce the number of our children after bars.
“Governments must urgently invest in self -determinated support that addresses the unattered needs of children, not prisons.”
The president of the legal services of the national aborigines and Islander de Torres, Karly Warner, says that the race through jurisdictions to be hard with youth crime is dangerous.
“They will be counterproductive and aggravate the disadvantage and trauma experienced by many of our young people and communities,” he said.
The Government of the Liberal Party of NT Country has reduced the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10, the renovated bail legislation reintroduced the use of saliva cap.
The “adult time, adult” policy of Queensland, introduced in 2024, means that children face the same maximum sentences as adults for a series of crimes, including life imprisonment for murder, homicide and serious body damage.
That State has also criminalized the violation of the bond for children.
Changes in bail legislation in NSW and Victoria have also attracted the concern of legal services and justice defenders.
Imprisoned children have never worked to stop the crime, Warner said, on the other hand, they can make young people more likely to remain “trapped in a continuous cycle” of imprisonment.
In NSW and the law, Mrs. Warner said there has been a 270 percent increase in the number of bail requests that go to the Supreme Court and an increase in demand in legal services to accompany it.
“There has not been a reciprocal increase in funds to try to deal with these dangerous laws that governments throughout the country are creating,” he said.
“What that means is that not only children are affected by the laws themselves, but it is more likely to be trapped in the criminal justice system if they cannot get the help they need.
“Ultimately, what that means is that we have children who are more traumatized, exposed to a crime life and they are more likely to advance in adult prisons and that make communities more dangerous.”
Time for rethinking
Mrs. Warner said that it is not too late for governments to replenish youth justice laws in their jurisdictions.
“We have seen the tragic consequences of punitive and hard policy in the crime that drives the mass imprisonment of aboriginal children with the death of aboriginal adolescents in youth arrest,” he said.
“What will be needed for the government to realize that they are ruining the life of children and are making communities more dangerous?”
Dr. McGlade agrees and is also asking all governments to invest in programs led by the community that divert children from the criminal justice system.
“It really is the future of our children and the life and security of our children, which is at risk here,” he said.
“We need to ensure that our laws are consistent with our international human rights obligations.
“Incarceration should only be a matter of last resort for children, now in Queensland that important principle has been prohibited by law.
“Children can make more time in prison than adults for the same crimes.”
A study by the University of Curtin found that young people who had contact with the justice system had 4.2 times more likely than their classmates to die prematurely, with the most common causes that are suicidal, traffic accidents and drug poisoning.
Most of these deaths occurred before the age of 25, said principal author Stuart Kinner.
“Young people who have had contact with the youth justice system can have difficult family relationships and have a higher risk of housing, mental illness, disorder for risk use and risk behaviors, making them particularly vulnerable,” he said.
“Achieving better results for these young people will require coordinated multisectoral investments in attention that extend beyond the criminal justice system.”
Dr. McGlade says that much more is needed to support families and children, as recommended by the National Children’s Commissioner, Anne Hollow, in his report, helps much earlier.
“We want to address what is really happening with children, give them the support and the opportunity they need,” he said.
“We know that many come from broken families and homes that could affect poverty and intergenerational trauma. Many have been exposed to family violence and can be victims of sexual aggression.
“And the worst thing we can do is treat them in a cruel and inhuman way through our justice system, that is actually inflaming the situation.
“Children who are imprisoned are more likely to recidivate, are not less likely, so they are actually creating communities that are more insecure.”
Dr. McGlade said they were appealing to the UN because governments have refused to participate respectfully with indigenous peoples or respect international laws and standards of linking human rights that Australia agreed.
“We have filed this urgent complaint because the life of aboriginal children is at stake,” he said.
“These flagrant infractions of the UN Treaties Law have been underlined by racism and negligence in Australian politics.
“We are asking the United Nations Committee to find that the laws, policies and inaction of the Australian government are feeding a mass imprisonment crisis, seriously violate Australian human rights obligations and must be approached urgently.
“There must be responsibility and reform, we cannot continue in this path of destruction, violence and racism towards indigenous children.
“Our children deserve something better and our people deserve something better.”
Llina de la Hía de Niños 1800 55 1800 (for people aged 5 to 25)
Lifeline 13 11 14
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