Thread by @SophieTrevitt

THREAD: Extremely grateful to be at this @Change_Record event today hearing from MPs, experts and an extraordinary Aboriginal woman Jess about her experience of incarceration #aisles #indigenousX #prison

Jess was made a ward of the state as a child, dad had schitziphrenia, mother had addiction issues, and Jess described “finding acceptance in all the wrong people and they made me feel safe”

“Everyone I trusted hurt me. Everyone in the system who should protect kids didn’t. The label the police give you is like you’re an animal.”

Jess described being trapped. Her partner was violent, her dealer made her feel like drugs were the only option, and she ended up in prison. She spent ten months on remand with no access to programs or anything to do. She’d lost her home and her kids.

.@BraybrookA calls to raise the age from 10 to 14. Child protection is the biggest indicator of children ending up in the youth justice system. For Aboriginal kids this is the rule, not the exception. #raisetheage

.@ALeighMP delivers some of his research of the “second convict age” - 9/10 Aboriginal men in WA born in the 70s had spent time in prison.

Devastating

NT has greater incarceration rate of Aboriginal people than during peak Apartheid in South Africa

Devastating insights from a doctor from the College of Physicians who highlights the extreme trauma & developmental and neurological issues that many of these children have. They need support not punishment.

The rate of death is enormously higher in children who exit youth justice systems. They are three times more likely to die prematurely. Often from suicide, but also drug overdose and violence and homicide

The #youthjustice system is literally killing people #auslaw #raisetheage