On an average night in the ACT, 16 youths between the ages of 10 and 17 spend the night in detention and of these, indigenous youth are the most likely to find themselves behind bars.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said on Friday the number of ACT youth in detention increased during 2010-12 but declined in the last two years.
The rate of Canberran youth in detention on an average night declined from 5.3 per 10,000 in June 2010 to 3.8 in June 2014, although this rate fluctuated due to small numbers in the territory.
In 2011, an average of 25 ACT youth were in detention on any given night with close to 1000 youth now in detention across the nation, about half of whom were unsentenced.
While the report found unsentenced non-Indigenous youth were the largest group of youth in detention in the ACT, this contradicted the national trend.
"Just over half of young people in detention on an average night in the June quarter of 2014 were Indigenous," said AIHW spokesman Tim Beard.
The report said the national representation of Indigenous children in detention rose from 22 times to 25 times the rate of non-indigenous youth during the past four years.
"The increase in Indigenous young people in detention is largely due to the falling rate of non-Indigenous young people in detention," said Mr Beard.
Law Council of Australia President-elect Duncan McConnel said Indigenous youth imprisonment rates were a national crisis and required leadership from the federal government.
"Indigenous youths are now locked-up at 24 times the rate of non-Indigenous youths and the incarceration rate for Indigenous women has increased by 74 per cent since the year 2000," he said.
"Now, around 1 in 4 deaths in custody is Indigenous, up from 1 in 7 at the time of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody."
Nationally, one in every 3000 young people aged between 10 and 17 years old in Australia were in detention on an average night and 91 per cent of these were male.
The number of Australian youth in detention on an average night dropped from 1053 to 929 indicating a small but steady trend.
Mr Beard said the national rate for youth detention fell from 3.7 to 3.3 young people per 10,000 on an average night, which was due mainly to a declining sentenced detention rate.
Youth detention rates fell in all Australian states and territories other than Queensland where the detention rate increased from 2.9 to 3.9 people per 10,000 Queenslanders.
Australians under the age of 10 cannot be charged with a criminal office with the upper age-limit in the youth justice system being 17, except in Queensland where it is 16.
