27 Indigenous children attempted self-harm in prison in the last financial year, new data has revealed.
Furthermore, Australia is spending more than a billion dollars on imprisoning children, with 460 Indigenous children and young people behind bars on average day in the last financial year.
The data from the Productivity Commission comes as several jurisdictions across the country introduce laws which experts say will only see more children spend time in detention.
It revealed an increase in the number and rate of Indigenous children locked up, with 26.6 per 10,000 First Nations children and young people spending time behind bars in 2023-24 on an average day, up from 25.6 per 10,000 the previous year.
On an average day, 65 per cent of children imprisoned by state and territory governments are First Nations. In the same period, Indigenous children between the ages of 10-13 were imprisoned at a rate of 45.5 per 10,000—45.5 times more than their non-Indigenous cohort.
Overall, state and territory governments imprison First Nations children at almost 27 times the rate of non-Indigenous children.
Maggie Munn, the First Nations Justice Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, told National Indigenous Times there was a "crisis of mass incarceration" of Indigenous children in Australia.
They said the latest data was an "absolute blight on the legal system and the governments whose policies put Aboriginal children as young as 10 behind bars".
"For decades, First Nations communities have implored governments to take action on reducing the numbers of our people in prisons," Munn said.
"Instead, governments have continued to punish our children with harsh punitive measures and ongoing trauma, and every year more and more children are being put behind bars."
Horrifically, 27 First Nations children and young people self-harmed and/or attempted suicide whilst in custody, with another 135 children receiving psychological or medical treatment without hospitalisation.
In October 2023, 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd took his own life in the Unit 18 youth detention facility at Perth's Casuarina Prison. The Aboriginal teenager was the first child to die in custody in Australia in more than a decade, and the first in WA history.
"It is deeply concerning that so many children are attempting to hurt themselves and take their lives while incarcerated – these children are hurting and in pain, governments cannot continue to ignore their voices and calls from their communities for help," Munn said.
"Politicians must stop the shameful treatment of Aboriginal children as political footballs. Our children belong in our playgrounds and schools, and our communities have the solutions and deserve better."
The first public hearings into Australia's youth justice and incarceration system will begin in Canberra on Monday, after National Indigenous Times revealed the extent of the organisations calling for widespread change.
Overall, data released on Thursday showed total expenditure for children in detention had risen $908 million in previous year, and was nearly double the $544 million spent in 2014-15.
Every child incarcerated in Australia costs $3,320 per day—$1.12 million per child annually.
"It is an incredible waste of taxpayer funds to spend over $1 billion a year locking up children," Justice Reform Initiative executive director Dr Mindy Sotiri said.
"There is no doubt that this amount will keep increasing unless governments shift focus to community-led responses that address the root causes of crime.
"For decades, the states and territories charged with administering youth justice have resorted to failed 'tough on crime' policies that rely on imprisonment of children and ultimately entrench cycles of crime and disadvantage – and we are paying an enormous price for this failure."
Queensland imprisons 45 per cent of all Indigenous children and young people in the country, despite only having 29 per cent of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth population.
The state has suspended the Human Rights Act in less than two years to enable easier incarceration of children, prompting one lawyer to tell National Indigenous Times the act wasn't worth "the paper it's written on".
Last year, Commissioner for the Queensland Family and Child Commission, Natalie Lewis, told National Indigenous Times the focus on punitive rather than preventative measures would see an increase in children in detention.
"It perpetuates inequalities, including lack of consistent access to quality health, education and therapeutic programs, and can continue the cycle of intergenerational trauma," she said at the time.
Munn was highly critical of the current LNP government.
"The number of Aboriginal children so heavily imprisoned in Queensland is a huge cause for concern given the Crisafulli Government's recently passed laws that seek to punish children with adult sentences," they said.
In NSW, the government accepted new bail laws would see more children incarcerated, but enacted them regardless; whilst in Victoria, the government dropped their commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14-years-of-age.
The data set doesn't include the latest laws the new Queensland government has introduced, which removes "detention as a last resort"—a tenet of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody and several international commitments Australia has ratified.
Over the last five years, children's incarceration has decreased in NSW, Victoria, WA, and South Australia, whilst along with Queensland, there have been significant increases in the Northern Territory, as well as increases in Tasmania and the ACT.
Dr Sotiri said Australia needed to redirect funding from incarceration to evidence-based community programs.
"Australians deserve a smarter approach and a better use of their taxpayer dollars. Instead of pouring more money into prisons, we need all sides of politics to recognise that incarceration does not work to deter children from committing crime," she said.
"What works is investment in programs that strengthen community safety outside of prison that offer proven results."
