Scattered throughout the strategy to drive down the number of Aboriginal children in Victoria's youth justice system are fragments of pain.
"I wanted to be with family … when I first got there I knew I had to get out of there."
"Before the system, I was under DHS, in resi care. I was meant to be there for a weekend and ended up being there for seven months."
"Racism. That's the elephant in the room. It's still there."
These experiences of Aboriginal communities have fed into the Wirkara Kulpa strategy, released by the Victorian government on Thursday.
Developed with the Aboriginal Justice Caucus, it aims to close the gap in the rate of Aboriginal children under youth justice supervision by 2031, by giving Aboriginal communities and young people greater control.
It describes its vision as one where "Aboriginal children and young people are not in the youth justice system … because they are strong in their culture, connected to families and communities, and living healthy, safe, resilient, thriving and culturally rich lives".
But the government is under pressure to act now on significant legal reforms, including raising the criminal age of responsibility to 14, to ensure that vision is realised.
Currently, Aboriginal children and young people are around 10 times more likely than their non-Aboriginal counterparts to become involved in the youth justice system.
The strategy noted this was well attributed to the more complex backgrounds of the children, whose communities grappled with the legacy of colonisation.
The report said the number of children in the system on an average day had steadily fallen in recent years, from 132 in 2015-16, to 70 in 2020-2021.
"Nevertheless, the over-representation of Aboriginal children and young people in Youth Justice remains high and more work is required to close the gap," it said.
The 10-year strategy includes on-country alternatives to remand, an Aboriginal organisation-led youth justice hub and the transfer of services to Aboriginal organisations through the new Youth Justice Act.
It also involves plans to identify a "trusted worker" for every Aboriginal child and young person in the youth justice system, who will have a key role in case management and decisions.
Recommendation to raise criminal age still 'under review'
It formed part of the government's response to an inquiry which found dozens of Aboriginal children reported experiencing racism and abuse in the youth justice system.
The Our Youth, Our Way report, handed down last year by the state's former commissioner for Aboriginal children and young people, called for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from 10 to 14.
It also urged the government to amend laws so that children under 16 could no longer be sent to youth custodial centres and children under 18 could not be sent to adult prisons.
While the government gave support or in-principle support to 67 of the inquiry's 75 recommendations, those calls for legal reforms remain under review.
The First Peoples' Assembly, which is progressing treaty talks in Victoria, welcomed the new youth justice strategy as a step towards greater self-determination.
"It's encouraging to see more First Peoples having a say and helping to shape policy," Assembly co-chair and Taungurung man Marcus Stewart said.
"And the recognition that no Aboriginal child should be in youth justice."
But the Assembly and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Services (VALS) criticised the government for its lack of commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.
"Our community has been really clear on this," Mr Stewart said.
"Our kids should be in schools, on Country, with families … not in prison cells."
In a statement, VALS said it was disappointed the government had not embraced all of the inquiry's recommendations, especially in the week marking 14 years since the national apology to the Stolen Generations.
"The Andrews government's refusal to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years old will mean that many of our children will continue to have their futures destroyed by the systemic racism that sees them over-policed and over-incarcerated," the legal service said.
Its CEO, Nerita Waight, said the government's decision not to back all of the commission's report was "shameful" and failed to uphold the principle of self-determination.
"No child is rehabilitated in prison, they are institutionalised and traumatised, often for life," she said.
A state government spokesperson said Victoria was "working to develop and consider a proposal to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12", in line with an agreement out of November's meeting of attorneys-general.
"In the meantime, we're continuing to tackle the root causes of youth offending, because the best outcome for young people is to avoid contact with the justice system in the first place," they said.
Children's commissioner urges government to act on 'very clear' evidence
Victoria's Commissioner for Children and Young People, Liana Buchanan, said overall she was "heartened" by the government's response to the inquiry.
"It's not every day you see a government strategy with the explicit aim to see no Aboriginal child in youth justice," she said.
Ms Buchanan said the strategies reflected the important need to improve diversion and keep people connected to culture and community.
"So there's a lot in the response, and a lot in the strategy … that I'm excited by and I commend the government for," she said.
But she said the legal reforms the government had not yet supported were "amongst, to my mind, the most critical recommendations that we made".
Ms Buchanan said she did not believe Victoria needed to wait for other states and territories to take action on raising the age of criminal responsibility, noting the ACT had already taken action.
"If that process takes too long, what it means is that we are still seeing children as young as 10, 11, 12, arrested by police, held in custody," she said.
"And the evidence is very clear … none of that is good for young children, it does no good for those children, indeed it causes harm and makes them far more likely to go on to keep offending."
