Australia Incarcerates Black Kids at Age Ten

In Western Australia, Aboriginal children are almost 50 times more likely to be in youth detention than white children. “All you hear is keys, and doors opening, doors shutting. It’s all you can basically hear at night and through the day. Just hear keys, keys and keys, just shaking and shaking,” says a 13-year-old Australian boy. The boy, who we will call Adam, has been imprisoned in Western Australia’s only youth detention centre, Banksia Hill, a dozen times. Adam’s parents were heavy drug users who had both taken their own lives by the time he was 10. “Everyone was saying my mum and dad, they died from taking drugs. So I just thought, well they died from taking drugs and I’m never going to see them again. So why don’t I just like, you know just take drugs, see if I’ll die.” He soon wound up on the streets of the state capital, Perth, stealing to survive. “I was just doing what my mates were doing to get a feed. Yeah, started stealing.”In this special investigation, 101 East meet