This joint submission by the Human Rights Law Centre and Change the Record to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee is made in response to the Committee’s inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on this continent have upheld their own intricate and rich systems, laws and Lore for thousands of years. Since colonisation, these intricate systems, laws, decision-making processes and accountability to Lore have largely been disrupted, displaced and disregarded, making way for laws, policies and practices that have been racist, discriminatory and harmful to generations of First Nations children.

The Human Rights Law Centre and Change the Record have made a series of recommendations including;

• The Australian government ensure that all Australian governments raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years of age, without exception and without the introduction of new powers to police and detain children.

• The Australian government ensure that all Australian governments transfer decision-making power, control and resources to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations and communities to build alternative, self-determined supports for children and young people.

• The Australian government ensure that all Australian governments reform their bail laws to repeal reverse onus provisions and legislate a presumption in favour of bail for all offences, with the onus on the prosecution to demonstrate that bail should not be granted due to there being a specific and immediate risk to the physical safety of another person or the person posing a demonstrable flight risk.

• The Australian government ensure that all Australian governments raise the minimum age of detention to at least 16 years old.

• The Australian government ensure that all Australian governments repeal mandatory sentencing laws.

• The Australian government ensure that all Australian governments prohibit in law:

  a. the use of solitary confinement, by any name, on children and on people with disabilities in places of detention;

  b. the use of prolonged solitary confinement, by any name, on people in places of detention; and

  c. the use of confinement, by any name, as a means of control or punishment.

• The Australian government ensure that all Australian governments urgently enact law reform to cease and prohibit the practice of strip searching of people in all places of detention.

• That the Australian government ensure that all Australian governments ban the use of spit hoods (or similar devices) in law.

  Read The Human Rights Law Centre and Change the Record’s Joint Submission here.

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