The Indigenous rights issue In Depth

Everything you need to know

“We launched our Community is Everything campaign in 2015 because we don’t want to see Indigenous kids locked up anymore,” explains Amnesty International Indigenous Rights Advisor Rodney Dillon. 

“We want to see them living in happy, healthy communities, finishing school, getting good jobs and becoming community leaders.”

We know that putting kids in jail only makes matters worse. It should be a last resort but research by the Victorian government shows that Indigenous kids are much more likely to be charged by police, than cautioned and referred to a support program.

Magistrates in regional and rural areas have told us that too often, local Indigenous programs are not sufficiently funded to be part of the solution, which makes detention a far more likely option. Find out more in our Brighter Futures report.

To close the justice gap, the Australian Government must work with the states and territories and Indigenous organisations to reduce the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids in detention. This is our main campaign aim.

Our research highlights the compelling evidence that intervening early in the lives of disadvantaged kids to address the causes of offending helps improve their wellbeing and sets kids up to thrive. With your support we can make a difference to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids in Australia.

In the words of Noongar Elder Eugene Eades, who we’ve worked closely with on the campaign: “The sky’s the limit if we work together”.

Read our reports to find out more:

• National: A brighter tomorrow
• Western Australia: There’s always a brighter future
• Queensland: Heads held high

Who's responsible?

Amnesty is highlighting state and territory laws and policies that violate the rights of children, like mandatory sentencing in Western Australia. We have already successfully fought for changes to the law in Queensland which restores the detention of children to a last resort and ensure children are not held in adult prisons.

However, our national government is ultimately responsible for ensuring Australia meets our obligations in protecting the rights of Indigenous children. Currently our national government is not holding state and territory governments to account for failing Indigenous children.

This is despite consistent recommendations, including from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that the federal government take responsibility in addressing the justice gap.

The Federal Government can make a difference by setting targets to close the justice gap and finally taking responsibility for change. Justice targets are the first step in developing a long-term national plan to close the justice gap.

At the next Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting, our states and territories also need to agree on a national strategy to address Indigenous over-representation in the justice system, in consultation with Indigenous leaders.