By DORINDA COX

WA Federal Senator

This latest death in custody is utterly devastating. Another young First Nations life gone in horrendous and preventable circumstances.

My thoughts are with his loved ones and those who cared for him. We need restorative, holistic and culturally safe ways to respond to youth crime that is not modelled on the adult prison system.

As a society we should be outraged that another youth has chosen to take their life rather than remain at the hands of a barbaric and traumatising justice system.

The current justice systems are killing our children and youth. Creating more trauma, removing children from their communities and culture.

WA Greens Senator Dorinda Cox

This can not and should not continue to imprison children in conditions without proper medical and psychological assessments and interventions.

In the NT they are now talking about lowering the age of criminal responsibility and spit hooding children – which equates to torture.

The Minister for Indigenous Australians Malinderri MCCarthy and AG Mark Dreyfus should be out today in a joint press conference calling an urgent inquiry into why children and young people are choosing to die in these prison cells.

The Albanese Labor Government is not interested in closing the gap, if they did they would intervene immediately and inquire into why this keeps happening – 2 kids in 12 months.

It’s radio silence, as First Nations peoples across the country wait for more heartache and responses to deaths at the hands of a brutal and violent system.