Pledge to change the record
The rates at which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are experiencing violence, 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.
I want to be part of an Australia that stops the mass imprisonment of First Nations Peoples and deaths in custody. One death is too many.
I add my name to those that call on our governments to:
- End the mass imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by repealing punitive bail laws; mandatory sentencing laws; and decriminalising public drunkenness.
- Stop imprisoning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and raise the age of legal responsibility from 10 to at least 14 years.
- End racist policing and require police accountability by ending the practice of police investigating police, and legislating for independent investigations of deaths in custody and resourcing independent police oversight bodies.
- Implement all recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the countless independent investigations, coronial inquests and reports that have been published in the three decades since.
- 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).
- Support justice reinvestment, which directs funding to address the socio-economic causes of violence and imprisonment; working in partnership with First Nations communities, services and their representatives, to develop and implement solutions.
- Properly fund Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services that are community controlled.