Aboriginal children in Western Australia are 53 times more likely to be jailed than other Australians, according to the Change the Record Coalition, which is trying to reduce incarceration rates for Aborigines. Eighty per cent of children in state detention in Western Australia are Aboriginal, even though Aborigines make up only 4.5 per cent of the juvenile population, according to the state Government.
"If Aboriginal families can be given stronger structures to provide better support, then hopefully that will be an answer," said Jackie Huggins, the co-chair of the Change the Record Coalition. Some legal experts and Aboriginal leaders, including Huggins, think the 11-year-old is too young to be charged with a serious offence such as murder. In Australia, the age of criminal responsibility is 10.
At the boy's first court appearance, the prosecutor revealed that at the time of the killing, he was on bail after being charged with threatening and robbing a man of A$50 in October. A newspaper published a Facebook photo of him holding up a fistful of hundred-dollar bills and making what looked like a gang symbol.
The victim's family wants the boy to be tried as an adult, which could lead to a custodial sentence of decades instead of the four to five years that would be more likely if he were found guilty as a child.
At the court hearing, the two families were kept in separate rooms. Outside, members of Slater's family threatened to kill the boy.
- Washington Post, Bloomberg