Locked Up - Spinifex Gum, Marliya, Briggs

Why’re the kids locked up?

Take this silence and blow it up

Why they go so young?

Falling sisters and burning sons

Yeh, yeah

They put our kids in the system

Findings, reports and royal commissions (Yo)

Numbers, statistics when they’re making decisions (Uh)

Assess the risks and build another prison (Woo)

Got a license for a car they under staffed

Positions need filling and they need another guard

Who is lighting their path when they’re

Frightened in the dark

They got spit hoods understood that it’s for their own good

And you expect them to act

When they get told they’re no good

Stand them in line and you make them go last (They go last)

False starts everyone runs past

And you tell them catch up while they’re choking on dust (Chokin' on dust)

Blow it up, throw it up

Carve our name on the frame so they know it’s us

I’ll tell them where I’m at and they can follow me

Remember that they’re kids not a campaign policy

Isolate the individual

Separated from their families, visits and intervals (That's)

Maximum punishment, rehab is minimal

Treat them like that you just make them better criminals

Why’re the kids locked up?

Take this silence and blow it up

Why do they go so young?

Falling sisters and burning sons

Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why

Oh why, oh why’d she go so young?

Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why

Oh why, oh why’d she get locked up at all?

Not going disappear (We still here)

Scream in your other ear (You will hear)

Not going to disappear (We still here)

Just 'cause they’ve been locked up (Let's go)

This cut’s a cut on us (You feel that?)

This shame is all of us (You feel that?)

This justice isn’t just (No peace)

This count’s not adding up (Let's go)

Woah (Locked up)

Woah oh oh oh oh (Locked down)

Woah oh oh oh oh oh oh (No justice!)

Woah oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh, oh oh (No peace!)

«The vicious cycle remains the same.

Indigenous people are more likely to come

to the attention of the police.

Indigenous people who come to the attention of

the police are more likely to be arrested and charged.

Indigenous people who

are charged are more likely to go to court.

Indigenous people who appear in

court are more likely to go to jail.

Indigenous youth now comprise over

fifty-percent of juveniles in detention.

The statistics speak for themselves

and the cold hard fact remains an indictment on all of us.»

No, no peace