Here’s What We Discovered After Fact-Checking Anthony Albanese on Young Indigenous Men in Jail or University

Requirement

In the run-up to the Voice to Parliament referendum, people on both sides of the debate took the opportunity to highlight Indigenous disadvantage.

Speaking on ABC Radio earlier this weekPrime Minister Anthony Albanese argued that voting no would result in “more of the same outcomes” for Indigenous Australians.

“We know that a young Indigenous man is more likely to go to prison than to university,” he said.

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This claim is one that the Prime Minister has repeated almost 40 times since May.

But is this correct?

RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.

The verdict

Mr Albanese’s claims are legitimate.

Although there is no data set that allows for a precise comparison, the available data overall suggests that young Indigenous men are more likely to go to prison than to university.

The latest census found that 4.9 percent of Indigenous men aged 18 to 34 were enrolled in university in 2021, while 6.3 percent were in prison on census night.

The census could not determine whether any Indigenous men had ever been incarcerated, but found that 4.8 percent of people aged 20 to 34 had a university degree.

Regarding lifetime incarceration rates, experts pointed to a survey last conducted in 2014-15 that showed 8.2 percent of Indigenous men aged 15 to 34 had been incarcerated.

This survey did not provide an age distribution for those who had attended or were attending college. However, the survey showed that among all Indigenous men aged 15 and over, 3.5 percent were studying at university and 3.8 percent had graduated, while 14.6 percent had been imprisoned.

As one expert told Fact Check, despite some improvements in recent years, “it’s much more likely to find a First Nations man in a prison cell than in a university lecture hall.”

Previous Fact Check findings

This is not the first time a Labor leader has compared rates of incarceration and university attendance among young Indigenous men.

In 2015, then Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said: “An 18-year-old Aboriginal boy in Australia is more likely to end up in prison than at university. »

Fact Check concluded that this statement was a fair decision.