Join the movement for Transformative Justice

The rates at which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – including children – are experiencing violence and police brutality, being locked away in prison, and dying in police cells and custody, far exceeds that of non-Indigenous Australians. We have been at a crisis point for decades. 

First Nations communities have the answers to this crisis. It is beyond time for governments to act.

Be part of a movement that transforms the rallying cry of ‘Blak Lives Matter’ into action. A movement to stop the mass criminalisation, imprisonment and mistreatment of First Nations Peoples, including vulnerable children, at all stages of the criminal legal system, and to put an end to deaths in custody.

By joining this movement for transformative justice, you are supporting ANTAR’s work for structural change and the building of a system based on self-determination, respect and care.

When you sign up you will receive our Justice Action Toolkit, a practical guide with resources to help you engage with these critical issues, and to support the First Nations community-led solutions that are proven to work.

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I stand with ANTAR in calling on all Australian governments to:

• Support First Nations children remaining in their communities, connected to culture and Country, by immediately raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) from 10 to at least 14 years of age;
• End discriminatory and violent policing practices, including racial profiling, and protect First Nations peoples from damaging police contact by ensuring that culturally safe community-based non-police first responders are widely available and adequately resourced;
• Urgently implement all recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) and the Bringing Them Home Report;
• Comprehensively implement both the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into national legislation and to ensure that these form the basis of significant youth justice system reform based on the rights of the child;
• End the abuse, torture and solitary confinement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in police and prison cells through legislative safeguards and by urgently establishing independent bodies to oversee the conditions of detention and treatment of people; in accordance with our obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT);
• Prioritise and be led by the principle of First Nations self-determination, including the transfer of decision-making power to First Nations communities and organisations in order to ensure that they have authority over decisions concerning First Nations peoples, and especially children;
• Support First Nations community-led initiatives and programs – including those based on the principles of justice reinvestment – to address the root causes of violence and imprisonment; working in partnership with First Nations communities and their representatives according to the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC); and
• Pivot from punitive ‘tough on crime’ approaches to policy making, which only exacerbate the over-representation of First Nations peoples in the criminal legal system and increase crime, to an approach that is culturally responsive, rehabilitative, rights-based, trauma informed and restorative in nature.