A Canadian expert specialising in youth violence says the government must increase the number of Indigenous families that care for Aborignal and Torres Strait Islander foster children.
Raymond Corrado, from Canada's Simon Fraser University, spoke at the National Institute of Crimonology's Australian Youth Justice Conference (tue), about ways to reduce the rate of repeat offending by young adults.
Indigenous children make up a third of all children in out of home care in Australia.
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Mr Corrado told NITV that placing these children with non-Indigenous families makes them more likely to be in trouble with the law later on in life.
"We find a strong correlation statistically between the number of childcare placements and the likelihood that youth will end up in custody. So, the identity issue is critical. One way of meeting that identity issue is to try to increase the number of health first nations or Aboriginal families that can adopt these children. But that requires again, program funding."
