It is almost 40 years since 16-year-old John Pat was found dead in a Roebourne cell, hours after he was caught in a brawl between off-duty police officers and a group of local men.
After receiving what would be a fatal blow to the head during the fight, Pat was thrown into a police van and placed in a police lock-up where he would succumb to his injuries two hours later.
Pat’s death led to WA’s first inquiry into Aboriginal deaths in custody but four decades on the treatment of Indigenous children within the justice system remains both concerning and an area for change, according to many.
Australian arts for social change organisation Big hART and the community of Leramugadu (Roebourne) tour their Songs for Freedom concert across the country to share messages of freedom and hope, alongside a campaign to lower rates of Indigenous incarcerations.
On March 5, the concert makes its way to Dyoondalup Point Walter riverfront as part of the Perth Festival, in collaboration with the City of Melville.
“The concert is not a protest piece, it’s about us all understanding the issue so then maybe we can work together to make things better for everyone,” Big hART national producer Rick Heath said.
“This is not the country that we want to live in, where 51 per cent of the Aboriginal kids are in jail; that’s insane.
“So the hope of the Songs for Freedom concert and campaign is to reduce the rate of incarceration by 50 per cent by 2025, that’s our target.
“And when you sit in this concert and listen, you can’t help but feel this sense of empathy and understanding to want to get on board and help make this happen.”
After working with the Leramugadu community for 10 years, Songs for Freedom musical director and Grammy-award-winning artist Lucky Oceans described the songs written for the concert as “truly moving”.
“What do you do in response to violence, you have a Songs for Peace concert,” Oceans said.
“We play and write the songs in prisons, mostly in Roebourne prison, and some of the songs that have come out of the experience like Elders of the Past and Money are really powerful.”
Oceans hopes the tour can help to encourage authorities to enact change to stop more Indigenous lives from being “ruined” by the justice system.
“It’s that awareness that people are in prison for not very much,” Oceans said.
“The hope is that legislation gets passed that actually lowers Indigenous rates of incarceration, and it can be things as simple as raising the age of responsibility from 10 years old to 14 years old.
“We hope that the Attorney General and politicians of each State we play in say, ‘beautiful concert, we feel good from this because music makes you feel good, but with this good feeling, let’s pass that on’ and perhaps it can prevent someone from a ruined life from being put in jail for almost no reason.”
The Department of Justice says in the last 12 months, Aboriginal children accounted for more than 70 per cent of young people held at the Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre.
WA’s Commissioner for Children and Young People Jacqueline McGowan-Jones agrees the age of criminal responsibility should be raised from 10 to at least 12 and the focus should shift from punitive measures to early intervention.
“For children in Year 5 in primary school, this is not the place for them to be,” she said.
Songs For Freedom brings the beauty of the Pilbara to the stage in an outdoor concert featuring music and image, featuring WA artists John Bennet, Kankawa Nagarra, Steve and Naomi Pigram, Fred Ryan, Angus Smith, Kendall Smith and Vikki Thorn.
Songs For Freedom performer Tehya Makani, 21, from Broome, says the staggeringly high youth Indigenous incarceration rates had been noticed across Australia.
“It’s definitely within a lot of Aboriginal communities, it’s not just the mob in the Pilbara that has experienced it, it’s countrywide,” she said.
“So I think it’s important to bring awareness to people who are non-Indigenous so they can educate themselves about these issues and hopefully make the world a better place.”
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