<
https://theconversation.com/locking-up-kids-has-serious-mental-health-impacts-and-contributes-to-further-reoffending-194657>
"The ABC
Four Corners report “Locking up Kids” detailed the horrific
conditions for young Aboriginal people in the juvenile justice system in
Western Australia.
The report was nothing new. In 2016,
Four Corners detailed the brutalisation
of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory’s Don Dale Youth Detention
Centre, in its episode “Australia’s Shame”. Also in 2016, Amnesty International
detailed the abuse children were receiving in Queensland’s juvenile detention
facilities.
Children should be playing, swimming, running and exploring life. They do not
belong behind bars. Yet, on any given day in 2020-21, an average of 4,695 under
police supervision or on probation in Australia, with 17% in youth detention.
Most of which were young people are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
Despite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in WA making up just
6.7% of the population, they account for more than 70% of youth locked up in
Perth’s Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre.
The reasons so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are detained
are linked to the impacts of colonisation, such as intergenerational trauma,
ongoing racism, discrimination, and unresolved issues related to
self-determination.
The
Four Corners documentary alleged children in detention were exposed to
abuse, torture, solitary confinement and other degrading treatment such as
“folding”, which involves bending a person’s legs behind them before sitting on
them – we saw a grown man sitting on a child’s legs in this way in the
documentary.
The documentary also found Aboriginal young people were more likely to be held
in solitary confinement, leading to the young people feeling helpless. Racism
was also used as a form of abuse, with security calling the young detainees
apes and monkeys. One of the young men detained at Banksia Hill expressed the
treatment he received made him consider taking his own life."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
