B&T: “That Night Nearly Destroyed Me, But It Also Lit A Fire Inside”: What UnLTD’s Adland Bail Out Taught Me About Justice, Hope & Shame

Last Friday night, 45 advertising industry professionals voluntarily spent the night inside the former Yasmar Youth Detention Centre in Sydney. The occasion? Adland Bail Out, a fundraising and awareness event hosted by UnLtd to shine a light on Australia’s youth justice crisis.

The goal was simple: experience what it’s like to lose your autonomy, even for one night, and in doing so, raise much-needed funds for young people at risk of incarceration.

Participants were fingerprinted, yelled at, interrogated, and placed in solitary confinement. They had no access to phones, no say over what they ate, when they slept, or where they went. Through a combination of immersive simulation and powerful storytelling from people with lived experience, the event aimed to build empathy and drive action.

Together, the 45 “inmates” raised over $102,000 to support UnLtd’s work and the Raise the Age NSW campaign, which is pushing to lift the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14. That means stopping children, some still in primary school, from being sent to prison.