Police wanding in Queensland was expanding. Young First Nations people were being caught up in the criminal justice system for offences they weren’t even being searched for. And most of the people most at risk had no idea what their rights were, or that they even had any.

For the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service (ATSILS), the challenge wasn’t just legal education. It was reaching young people aged 13 to 25 before an encounter with police turned into a life-altering criminal record.

The Challenge

In Queensland, police have the power to use handheld metal detection wands in designated public spaces under legislation known as Jack’s Law. The stated purpose is to reduce knife crime. The reality, for many First Nations people, has been something quite different.

Data from an independent Griffith University review found that Indigenous people made up 11.8% of those wanded whose ethnicity was recorded, despite representing only around 4.6% of Queensland’s population. More troubling still, over 50% of charges resulting from wanding were for drug possession rather than weapons, meaning young people stopped for a “weapons search” were ending up with criminal records for minor, unrelated offences.

ATSILS knew the law. Their clients were living it.

What they needed was a way to reach young First Nations people, many of them teenagers in communities with low literacy, and give them the knowledge to stay safe during a wanding encounter. Not to resist police, but to know their rights, stay calm, and know where to turn if something went wrong.

The Strategy

The brief was for a 90-second premium animated video, written for a low-literacy audience, calm and friendly in tone, and featuring First Nations voices.

ATSILS didn’t want a lecture. They wanted something that felt like a conversation. The kind of clear, direct information a trusted community member might share with a young person who didn’t know what to expect.

Animation was the right call for several reasons. It allowed ATSILS to accurately represent the wanding process, the officer, the wand, the public setting, without the logistical and legal complexity of filming real police interactions. It also gave the team control over representation, ensuring the characters on screen reflected the actual demographics being affected.

Critically, animation made it possible to keep the tone warm and empowering rather than confrontational or fear-inducing. 

The Approach

The video opens with a simple, honest explanation of what wanding is and why it exists. No legalese. No alarm. Just the fact that police have this power, it’s meant to detect knives, and here’s what it looks like.

From there, it walks viewers through exactly what to expect: where wanding can happen, that no warrant or consent is required, and what police can and can’t do. The voiceover, delivered by a First Nations narrator in his 40s, keeps it calm and plain throughout.

The turning point comes when the video addresses what happens if something goes wrong. If a person is wanded, no knife is found, and they’re still charged with an offence, what then? The script gives clear, actionable guidance: stay calm, ask why, follow directions, write down what happened.

Then a second narrator steps in for the closing. Her voice signals a shift from information to support. She directs viewers to call ATSILS on 1800 012 255 for free and confidential legal advice.

The Outcome

The video gave ATSILS a repeatable resource they could deploy across social media, their website, and community workshops, reaching their audience in the spaces they actually occupy.

By keeping the tone calm and the language accessible, the video works for the people who need it most: young people with limited legal knowledge who might otherwise freeze, argue, or simply not know they could ask for help.

Next Steps

Got a complex legal or community issue that needs to reach people who’ve been left out of the conversation?

Whether you’re navigating sensitive subject matter, working with low-literacy audiences, or trying to reach communities that have reason to distrust official messaging, we’d love to help you figure it out.

Drop us a line and let’s chat about what you’re working on.