On an average night in 2019, there were 949 children behind bars in
Australia – more than half of them were Aboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander.
Of all 10-year-olds incarcerated, 80% were Aboriginal children.
Aboriginal kids make up only 6% of all 10- to 17-year-olds in Australia but they are 54% of the juvenile detention population.
They are jailed at 22 times the rate of non-Indigenous young people. And they are jailed younger. In 2019 nearly 65% of children under 14 in detention were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
Study after study has shown that contact with the criminal justice system
at a young age can do lasting damage to children, their families and
communities. […]
According to a 2016 report by the Sentencing Advisory Council, 94% of children in detention aged 10 to 12 returned to prison before they were 18.
[…]
Aboriginal children are also disproportionately targeted by punitive
policing. In New South Wales, for example, Indigenous kids are significantly overrepresented in the number of strip-searches conducted by police.
NSW police have also been operating a secretive blacklist
known as the suspect target management plan, or STMP, largely made up
of Indigenous children – 72% – deemed to be at risk of committing
crimes.
The NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission
found that many of the children, some as young as nine, had not been
charged with a crime and were not aware they were a target.
Between 2017 and 2019 the state’s highest concentration of kids subject to the STMP were in the western Sydney suburb of Mount Druitt.
At 13 [I.S.]
was strip-searched by police on his way to the shops in the suburb.
[I/S/] says he was told to strip down to his underpants on the side of a
busy road.
“It was embarrassing,” he says. “I didn’t know what to do so I just complied.” [I.S.] doesn’t know if he was on the STMP but says there were periods
when police stopped him almost daily. One day he was stopped twice, by
the same officers. The first time he was strip-searched. […]
Increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14
could lead to a decrease of about 15% in the number of young Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people in detention, according to the 2020 Productivity Commission report […].
But governments – with the exception of the Australian Capital Territory’s – are reluctant to act
[…].
Queensland’s attorney general […] said bluntly: “There are
no plans to raise the age of criminal responsibility in Queensland.”
[…]
All but one of the 32 kids now in juvenile detention in the NT are Aboriginal boys.
There have been numerous times over the past decade when every single child in detention in the territory is Aboriginal.
The restorative justice program is available in 12 NSW local courts. The
magistrate works with Aboriginal elders, victims and the offender’s
family to determine an appropriate sentence. […] Some states also have their version of the NSW youth Koori court […]. But the youth worker [D.D.] says […] “I want to stop people from ever going to court. I want to stop us focusing on having culturally safe courts, when really we need to have culturally safe communities […].” [T.W.] says therapeutic approaches are needed
[…].
“When do we lose our compassion for a child who is being abused or traumatized […]?” she asks. “Well, effectively Australia says we lose that compassion at [age] 10.”
——-
Headline and text published by: Lorena Allam and Laura Murphy-Oates. “Australia’s anguish: the Indigenous kids trapped behind bars.” Guardian Australia. 17 January 2021.
As you celebrate thanksgiving, know that the Trump administration is taking away 321 acres of land from the Mashpee-Wampanoag, the tribe that helped the pilgrims survive and were present at the first thanksgiving. Tell legislators to support the Mashpee Reservation Reaffirmation Act. ]
For those who don’t live in Massachusetts, that is literally ALL THE LAND THEY HAVE! All of it. The state aims to make the entire ~3000 person tribe homeless.
If you want more information the tribe themselves have a website for you to look at! Please spread the word and reach out to your networks so people are feeling specifically asked to act upon this… it is incumbent upon all of us to stand up for our Mashpee-Wampanoag siblings at this time. We MUST be their allies. We MUST uplift their voices and support what their asks are.
We owe all Indigenous peoples in this country so much more than this… but this is a start.
And of course it’s always a good day to venmo, paypal, or cashapp black, indigenous and other POC in your community, or donate to your community mutual aid fund.
there is going to be an arguably even more important election than the presidency happening on january 5th in georgia. the two senate seats in their state did not reach enough of a majority in this election to decide a winner, so theyre doing a “run-off election”.
if these two seats are won by democrats they will flip the senate to a MAJORITY for democrats. we will have the presidency, the house AND the senate if the democratic candidates in georgia win. the policies biden promised could have a better chance at being passed!
if you live in georgia PLEASE vote for the democratic senate candidates on january 5th
if you do not, i recommend donating to the candidates election fund! :)
I boosted this elsewhere, but I feel like I should post it here too.
I will be posting the link to the thread AND the link to the ballot checking site in the reblogs because tumblr hates links. If you reblog, PLEASE reblog that version.
while news coverage has largely dropped off, #BlackLivesMatter protests are still happening! Alexis Williams has created a website with an enormous wealth of resources, including a list of petitions, places to donate, and tons more info
Over 1,500 ballots in GA have been rejected and we are SO CLOSE to turning the state blue—every vote counts. If you did a mail-in or absentee ballot, go check that it was counted. If it’s been rejected, you can call the GA Voter Protection Hotline at 1-888-730-5816.
Right now, every single vote counts. Check on your ballot and make sure it was accepted.
Please be vigilant about your vote, especially so in battleground states like Florida and Georgia with Republican governors who have explicitly shown that they have no compunction about suppressing the vote.
if you voted by mail-in ballot in PA, MI, WI, NV, NC, and GA:
you can check the status of your ballot online by entering the information associated with your voter registration to check if your ballot was accepted.
pennsylvania voters: check the status of your ballot here
michigan voters: check the status of your ballot here
wisconsin voters: check the status of your ballot here
nevada voters: check the status of your ballot here
north carolina voters: check the status of your ballot here
georgia voters: check the status (how to) of your ballot here
it is vital to the success of this election that you check to see if your vote was accepted, and especially important since it has come down to these six states. please take a few seconds to follow up to make sure your vote was counted!
every state will look different, but for example:
this is what it will say on pennsylvania’s ballot status site if your vote has been recorded. if the site does not indicate that your vote has been recorded, please consider following up with a phone call to your county election office or whoever your state dedicates to these issues. if not, keep checking periodically throughout the week to make sure your vote was recorded.
this is so important. there is a lot at stake here. so many people are vulnerable. we need to make sure every. single. vote. is counted to ensure a fair election. your vote matters! please don’t let it stop at just casting the vote, make sure it’s been recorded.
i know all eyes are on the presidential candidates for this election, and rightfully so, but some very wonderful and important things are happening statewide that should be celebrated and highlighted, so here’s a few:
Florida passed Amendment 2, which will raise minimum wage to $15/hour by 2026
South Dakota, Montana, Arizona and New Jersey all passed an amendment that legalized marijuana
Utah will now be removing gendered language in the Utah Constitution and will replace it with gender-neutral language
California passed Prop 17, which restores voting rights to previously imprisoned citizens
Delaware elected Sarah McBride, the first ever openly trans state senator
Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones are the first ever openly gay black members of congress
Cori Bush is the first ever woman of color to win a seat in Congress in Missouri
Mauree Turner became the first non-binary state lawmaker in America and the first Muslim member of the Oklahoma state house
Oregon has become the first state to decriminalize all drugs (small amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs will have lesser punishments, similar to traffic tickets, and no jail time.)
Kim Jackson is the first out LGBTQ+ state senator in Georgia
UPDATED WITH MORE GOOD NEWS:
Shevrin D. Jones is Florida’s first opnely LGBTQ+ state senator
Jabari Brisport became New York’s first gay Black member of the house
Arizona flipped blue for the first time in 24 years
Michele Rayner-Goolsby became the first Black LGBTQ woman in the Florida Legislature
Voters in Colorado overwhelmingly rejected Prop 115, a state ballot measure that would have banned abortions after a fetus reaches 22 weeks gestational age. In rejecting the initiative, Colorado remains one of the most progressive states in the country on reproductive rights
Arizona will now send two Democrats to the Senate for the first time since 1951, thanks to the win of ex-astronaut Captain Mark Kelly.
Democrats have flipped the senate seat in Colorado, with the win of former Gov. John Hickenlooper
Mississippi is removing the confederate flag from their symbology
Marie Newman, who has been titled ‘a leader of the pro-choice movement’, will now represent Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District in Congress
Nevada became the first state to protect same-sex marriage in it’s constitution
Immigrant rights activist and former public defender José Garza won the race for District Attorney of Travis County, Texas
Michigan passed Proposal 20-2, which requires police to have a search warrant to access a person’s electronic data and electronic communications.
EVEN MORE UPDATES:
Washington approved Referendum 90, which requires all school districts to provide age appropriate, comprehensive sex ed at all grade levels
Colorado passed the first paid family/ medical leave program
Mississippi passed an ammendment that legalized medical marijuana
Denver overwhelmingly voted to pass Ballot Measure 2J. which lifts the city’s more than 30-year-old ban on pit bulls
New Mexico became the first state to elect all women of color to our House delegation
Vermont elected the state’s first openly transgender legislator, Taylor Small
Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, all won re-election in the House
Nebraska passed a constitutional amendment to the state constitution that closes the loophole of the U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment that allowed slavery as a punishment for crimes
Rhode Island passed a measure to rename the state, officially naming it Rhode Island and not The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, due to connections to slavery
Oregon passed measure 109, the first state to legalize psilocybin (mushrooms) for mental heath treatments
Hawai’i elected native Hawaiian Kaiali’i “Kai” Kahele, a Democrat, to the House of Representatives. He is one of 6 Native members of the House who will be sworn in in January
Utah passed legislation that removes language from the state constitution that allows the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishments (no more prison labor!)
