Today, thousands of Indigenous people across Australia wake behind the bars of our prisons. Indigenous children are confined in juvenile detention centres away from their family; Indigenous women are locked in women’s prisons away from their children; and Indigenous men are incarcerated in high-security prisons, thousands of kilometres away from their communities and their lands.
Indigenous Australians comprise 29% of the prison population but only 3.3% of the population. The trauma for families and communities is unimaginable. Indigenous people are 16-18 times more likely to be imprisoned than the rest of the population. [2] Perpetuating the cycle of trauma and disadvantage – two of the key drivers of incarceration.
Incarceration Nation connects the relentless legislation and government intervention since colonisation to the trauma and disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians. Exposing massacres, child removals, stolen wages, denial of education, over-policing, racism, and systemic bias. We are amidst an internationally recognised human rights catastrophe. It’s time for change.