You Can’t Ask That: July 6

Tonight on You Can’t Ask That, serious questions are posed to those who have spent time in juvenile detention.

The Australian government has a dirty little secret that is making us one of the most shame-faced nations in the developed world: we lock children up.

Despite being urged by 31 countries at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2019 to raise the age of criminal responsibility from ten years old to 14 – the age set by the UN – we refused. This means kids in this country can be incarcerated before they’re old enough to have a Facebook account.

Despite making up less just 3.3% of the general population, the vast majority of kids behind bars are Indigenous – almost half (8). In the age group 10 to 17, First Nation people are 17 times more likely than nonindigenous Australians to end up in detention (9) and in this episode we hear from Keenan Mundine a First Nations man who was locked up as a juvenile. He grew up on the block in Redfern where his mum died when he was 6 and his father not long after that. Keenan was often forced to steal socks, underwear, and food to survive.

At 14 he was caught stealing a laptop from a car and locked up.

“For me, at 14 and being in that critical position, I accepted that life,” he says, adding, “No child should be put in that position to accept a life like that.”

“I don’t think I slept. I think I cried, just crying for my mum and dad,” he recalls.

Spanian, 35, was the son of a single-mother who grew up in the housing commission, surrounded by family and friends who were criminals. By 15, he was also behind bars.

He spent a total of 17 years behind bars before turning his life around. It’s left him with a complicated view of the prison system.

9:10pm tonight on ABC.