Category: Indigenous youth in detention

Former worker claims abuse was rife at Cleveland Youth Detention Centre in Queensland – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

New claims of brutality emerge from a Queensland juvenile detention centre in the wake of a Four Corners report into abuse at a NT facility.

Source: Former worker claims abuse was rife at Cleveland Youth Detention Centre in Queensland – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

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The Hard Questions: Youth Detention Doesn’t Make Anyone Safer, Justice Reinvestment Does – New Matilda

Australia’s model of locking up children makes us all less safe, and lags behind global developments on crime prevention, writes Laura Hogan. Fyodor Dostoyevsky said that “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” The footage aired on the 7:30 Report of the torture of young people in detentionMore

Source: The Hard Questions: Youth Detention Doesn’t Make Anyone Safer, Justice Reinvestment Does – New Matilda

How to reduce Indigenous imprisonment rates

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How to reduce Indigenous imprisonment rates.

Five per cent of the population, almost 60 per cent of the prison inmates

On any night, more than half of the 10-17 year olds in juvenile correctional detention in Australia are Indigenous, despite making up just 5.5 per cent of the population in that age category.

More than half of young Australians in juvenile detention facilities identify Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples, according to a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released yesterday. 

In the June 2014 quarter, during an average night, 59 per cent of the 738 inmates aged 10-17 in detention (434 people) were Indigenous.

The representation of Indigenous youth in correctional detention is in contrast to the latest population estimates for June 2014, with just about 5.5 per cent of Australians in the 10-17 year old age group estimated to be Indigenous.