YANQ and Australia's poetry slam champion, Luka Lesson, have teamed up in 2012 to tackle the ongoing outrage of 17 year olds in adult prisons. Luka has been creating a spoken word piece, 17, to ignite the campaign this year, and has been blogging about the process so far at http://lukalesson.com/. We're super excited about its release during the Brisbane leg of the “Please Resist Me” Poetry Slam Tour on Sunday February 26, 2012, and hope you can come along!

Locking up 17 year olds in prison violates the United Nations bill, ratified by the Australian Government, that states eighteen should be the legal age of adult imprisonment. Queensland’s own Anti-descrimination Commissioner has condemned the current state of affairs, as has the Children’s Commissioner and The Queensland Law Society. How can we be doing this to our children?

Find out more about the YANQ's Stop Locking Up Children in Queensland's Adult Prisons campaign here, or get active and download our campaign resource kit! You can also call YANQ to see how your organisation can get involved by calling 07 3844 7713.