Indigenous justice

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
• National: The Sky is the Limit
• National: Free to be kids National Plan of Action

We aim to safeguard the rights set out by the United Nations in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognises the rights of Indigenous people and communities to control decisions affecting their own lives and futures.

That is the foundation of our Community is Everything campaign – with research and plans developed under the guidance of Indigenous community members.  

We are working with Indigenous peak organisations and other NGOs, as part of the Change the Record coalition, to close the justice gap.

The two main goals of Change the Record are to:

1. Close the gap in rates of imprisonment by 2040; and
2. Cut the disproportionate rates of violence to at least close the gap by 2040 with priority strategies for women and children.

Change the Record is chaired by Indigenous experts in the justice space and draws on the combined expertise of Indigenous peak, community sector and human rights organisations. You can read our key principles for change here.

Other Indigenous justice issues that we work on include:

• Action to stop Indigenous deaths in custody
• The right to live on Aboriginal homelands
• The right to be free from racial discrimination

The Change the Record Coalition also calls on the Federal Government to adopt and report on this 8-point National Plan of Action to end the abuse and over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in prison.

To end the over-representation, Amnesty International is calling for:

More Indigenous-led solutions for kids

• Governments should adequately fund the hard-working Indigenous people and organisations already working to support children and families and prevent contact with the justice system.
• Judges should have adequate alternatives to detention available to them to work with and rehabilitate kids instead of locking them up.

A fairer youth justice system

Governments must address the faulty parts of our justice system by:

• Supporting children, families and communities to stay strong and together
• Raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14
• Getting children who are not sentenced out of prison
• Adequately funding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled legal and other support services
• Ending abusive practices in prisons
• Setting targets to end the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in prison
• Improving collection and use of data
• Working through COAG to reform State and Territory laws that breach children’s rights