The Western Australian Government has remained defiant in the face of what Amnesty International has called a "crisis point" in indigenous youth detention.
The human rights group issued the “There is always a brighter future” report on Thursday, stating that Australia was “repeating past mistakes” through policies supporting the incarceration of Indigenous youth.
It stated that throughout 2013-14, Indigenous young people were 26 times more likely to be in detention.
The situation was more concerning in Western Australia, where Indigenous young people were 52 times more likely and almost nine out of 10 children in detention aged between 10 and 13 were Aboriginal.
“Unless the high rate of Aboriginal youth detention is urgently addressed, an increasing number of Aboriginal young people will move into the adult justice system,” it stated.
'The State Government makes no apology for detaining young people who commit violent crimes that endanger community safety'
The report also stated that Indigenous youth were also more likely to be charged rather than cautioned, with Aboriginal youth cautioned 35 per cent of the time compared to their non-Indigenous peers at 59 per cent.
Amnesty International is calling on the Western Australian Government to undertake serious legal reform, including:
- Repealing all of the provision in the Criminal Code Act Compilation Act 1913 (WA) that require the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences for young people
- Immediately withdrawing parts of the Criminal Law Amendment (Home Burglary and Other Offences) Bill 2014 that would extend the application of mandatory minimum sentencing to young people
- Amending section 29 of the Criminal Code Act Compilation Act 1913 (WA) to ensure that people ages under 12 years are not responsible for any “act or omission”
Western Australian Corrective Services Minister Joe Francis said his Government "makes no apology" for detaining violent young people.
In a statement provided to SBS, Mr Francis said that the government has made "significant inroads in reducing the number of young Aboriginal people in detention".
"There are fewer young Aboriginal people in detention in WA now than there were two years ago," he said.
"The 98 current detainees have been sentenced, or are on remand, for extremely serious crimes including manslaughter, sexual assault, armed robbery, hijacking and other acts of violence."
Corrective Services Department’s commissioner James McMahon said the report highlighted the need to significantly change how authorities dealt with young Indigenous offenders.
“If we want different outcomes, we have to do things differently,” the commissioner said.
“We need to build sustainable relationships so together we can create and deliver programs that meet the needs of individual offenders.”
