Elijah Buol receives 2019 Australia Day Award for his work towards reconciliation and empowering communities.
Elijah Buol has just been awarded an OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) in the Governor General's 2019 Australia Day Honours. He was already a recipient of multiple other awards including most recently the 2019 Queensland Local Hero Award.
Originally from South Sudan, Elijah Buol is a Queensland based criminologist best known for his leadership roles and efforts towards a more inclusive society. He's also made significant ontributions to the African and Indigenous communities in particular.
The latest prestigious award acknowledges Elijah Buol’s initiatives towards reconciliation as well as his advocacy for a fairer and more humane justice system in Queensland.
He started engaging Indigenous youth through the organisation Youth Affairs Network Queensland. It is also via this organisation that Elijah Buol directed his reconciliation Initiatives.
In addition, Youth Affairs Network Queensland allowed him to meet Indigenous elders as well and learn a lot from them in the process.
But, it is the plight of the youth and their entanglement in the justice system that got most of his attention. He was appalled that 17 year old juveniles could be locked up in adult prisons.
December 12, 2018 saw the release of the last juvenile from an adult prison in Queensland
“In the last few years I have been working with a lot of young people. The Indigenous youth go through similar experiences as Africans youth,” Elijah Buol says.
He’s spent the last 12 years campaigning and advocating to stop sending juveniles to adult jails. In this period he's witnessed positive changes.
“Over the last few years there are less youth going through the criminal justice system but there is still an over-representation of Indigenous juveniles. And, African youth are becoming the second wave of juveniles filling the justice system”.
In 2016, advocates including Elijah Buol obtained legislative changes in Queensland's parliament banning the detention of juveniles in the state’s adult prisons.
December 12, 2018 is a date he is not ready to forget. This is the day when the last juvenile, a 17 year old Indigenous youth, was released from an adult prison in Queensland. And, Queensland vowed the situation will never reoccur.
Elijah Buol was invited to meet the young Indigenous youth upon his release. “I’m proud to have met the young man and have a conversation with him,” Elijah Buol says.
He adds, “there is a need for progressive policies that look after the interests of the people. The justice system has to focus on rehabilitation. Society has to invest in these young people so they can become better people."
"We need to have a conversation about why these youth are committing crimes. And stop putting racial labels on crime.”
