It should be impossible to ignore heartbreaking evidence of the effects of structural racism on Aboriginal children and young people, particularly those caught in a fully discredited punitive system in the NT that now includes “torture” plus risks of death as well as trauma.

This was worsened recently in the Northern Territory where almost 30% of the population is Indigenous, and where the election of a Country Liberal Party Government almost one year ago with their blatant “tough on crime” policies has led to strikingly worsening dangers, especially for children as young as 10 years old held in detention.

Nonsense phrases like “Adult crime, do the time”, are symptomatic of a government with contempt for the indisputable data on the harm they are instrumental in sustaining or accelerating.

A Northern Territory senior adviser, speaking anonymously for obvious reasons, told me: “The NT Government’s ‘tough on crime agenda’ is not about crime. It’s about being ’tough’. It’s about the right to be a bully. That’s why they have zero interest in the fact that their policies will make crime levels rise. It’s all about punching down and impunity to behave with cruelty. Nothing to do with addressing crime.”

NT paediatricians offer first-hand experience of the life-threatening harm caused by the newly passed legislation allowing acts of violence towards Aboriginal children and young people, including the reintroduced use of dogs and spit hoods, plus the restraints necessary to force a child or young person into a spit hood, causing grave concerns about a practice that has been labelled as a form of torture.

This legislation was passed by the NT Government on the evening of 31 July, disregarding all evidence-based data that this inevitably worsens crime outcomes and that only health-led diversionary programmes have any chance of rehabilitating highly disadvantaged children and young people.

A media release on 30 July 2025 from the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists warned of violations to Australia’s human rights obligations and life-long harm.

The media release continued: “RANZCP president Dr Astha Tomar said the NT Government’s proposed changes were a ‘catastrophic step backward” that would disproportionately affect First Nations Australians who are overrepresented in the youth justice system, and cause life-long trauma and harm. As frontline mental health practitioners who witness the devastating trauma of detention in youth very often, we cannot stand by while the most vulnerable children in our community are subjected to practices banned as torture under international law… If we truly want to stop re-offending and ensure community safety, the evidence is crystal clear: youth incarceration will only increase crime rates. Treating the underlying drivers of crime through community-based interventions and mental health justice diversion works – torture doesn’t."

This was further backed up, and the endangering use of spit hoods more fully explained, on ABC News Breakfast by forensic and child psychiatrist and Associate Professor at UNSW, John Kasinathan. He has stated that not only is the experience of being inside such a hood suffocating and terrifying, “The young person can’t breathe, it gets into their mouth, into their nose, it can trigger an asthma attack… it’s incredibly harmful.”:

Australia Lawyers for Human Rights unconditionally back up the protests of paediatricians and psychiatrists and “condemns the Northern Territory Government’s announcement this week that it is reinstating the use of spit hoods in youth detention, eight years after the practice was banned".

They point out, “This decision undermines Australia’s international obligations under core United Nations human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention Against Torture (CAT).”

ALHR’s vice-president and chair of Children’s Rights, Kerry Weste, said:

“The use of spit hoods violates children’s internationally recognised human rights and will further compound trauma for children in prison in the Northern Territory. Given the Territory recently re-lowered the age of criminal responsibility to just 10 years of age and given that almost 100% of children in NT prisons are Aboriginal, this move is particularly alarming.

“There is no safe use of spit hoods. It is not safe to place a restrictive device over a child’s head. Spit hoods have been implicated in the deaths of First Nations peoples. Their use can pose a risk of suffocation and can never be justified when safe PPE alternatives are readily available.”

Readers of Pearls & Irritations can take supportive action in a number of ways: writing to the NT Chief Minister Chief.minister@nt.gov.au; to their local MP; or to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Senator the Hon Malarndirri McCarthy.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.