Know Your Rights: Wanding Education for ATSILS

In Queensland, police have the power to use handheld metal detection wands in designated public spaces under 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 needed 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.

We created a 90-second animated video written for a low-literacy audience, calm and friendly in tone, and featuring First Nations voices. The video opens with a simple, honest explanation of what wanding is and why it exists, then 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 turning point comes when the video addresses what happens if something goes wrong. 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, directing viewers to call ATSILS for free and confidential legal advice.

The video gave ATSILS a repeatable resource they could deploy across social media, their website, and community workshops. By keeping the tone calm and the language accessible, it 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.