“They Were Treating Me Like a Dog”: The Colonial Continuum of State Harms Against Indigenous Children in Detention in the Northern Territory, Australia

Thalia Anthony

doi:10.13169/statecrime.7.2.0251

Abstract

The analytic lens of state crime can inform our understanding of the mistreatment of Indigenous children and young people in settler-colonial state institutions. Based on a critical analysis of the proceedings and findings of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory (2016–2017), this article identifies state crimes of torture and abuse inflicted on Indigenous children in carceral and non-carceral institutions. These crimes breach international human rights laws but are more than a set of individual harms. They are also part of a pattern of ongoing structural violence that reasserts the settler-colonial state's sovereign position. This article identifies that the Royal Commission itself is complicit in reproducing state sovereignty. It argues that redressing state crimes against Indigenous children requires challenging the structural injustice of the settler-colonial state.

Highlights

On 25 July 2016, Australian national television aired footage of torture inflicted by guards on Indigenous children in Northern Territory (NT) youth detention
This article has argued that the violence perpetrated by guards on Indigenous children in NT detention can be classified as state crimes
Such crimes go beyond individual breaches of international human rights laws and domestic laws

Summary

Introduction

On 25 July 2016, Australian national television aired footage of torture inflicted by guards on Indigenous children in Northern Territory (NT) youth detention. Indicative of its place within the settler-colonial state, the Royal Commission was directed towards how the state could improve the state’s carceral and punitive systems, rather than calling into question the role of the state in relation to Indigenous communities. The racial power dynamic of the violence in youth detention, which takes place between abusive non-Indigenous state officers and victimized Indigenous children, required discrete attention, as did the broader racially discriminatory policies in the NT.

Results

Conclusion