The youth justice system is a set of practices and legal processes for managing children and young people who committed or allegedly committed an offence. One of its major components is supervising the young offenders in community detention.
In Australia, the youth justice system primarily deals with children as young as ten years old up to seventeen years old at the time of their offence. In some jurisdictions, it also supervises those aged 18.
The governments across Australia have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the youth justice system in the country. However, their efforts are seemingly in vain as more and more children are entering child protection and youth justice systems.
The National Crisis in Youth Justice in Australia
Commissioner Anne Hollonds of the National Children said that the youth justice in Australia resulted in national systemic failures, institutional racism, and severe abuse and neglect. It doesn’t help and protect children and young people nor keep the community safe.
She highlighted that the current approach, like the stricter sentencing and bail laws, incarcerating kids as young as ten, and punitive conditions, are barriers to child safety and well-being.
Some governments particularly don’t prioritise young detainees living with poverty and disadvantage. Many of them and their families don’t get access to the basic support services they need, causing kids to return to the child protection and youth justice systems.
Australia doesn’t even have a Minister for Children or even national plans for child well-being. It also doesn’t have a coss-portfolio leadership, such as a taskforce, that can help address the system failures.
Although the children and their parents can be professionally guided by a youth detention lawyer, it isn’t enough. Australia should have better health, education, and social service systems, like many other developed nations.
Other Gov’t Agencies Take on The Issue
The national youth justice crisis has been a continuous concern of the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). The commission is an independent third party in Australia responsible for all duties, functions, and powers concerning human rights.
AHRC claimed that Australia’s punitive approach is misguided, out of step internationally, and isn’t working to keep the community safe. Instead, it compromises young detainees’ safety and routinely violates their human rights.
AHRC’s Commissioner Lorraine Finlay emphasised that violating their rights doesn’t equate to justice for the victims of their crimes. Furthermore, it doesn’t only stain Australia’s human rights record but also breaches international human rights obligations. They had already detailed these problems in a submission to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.
She added that this punitive approach only increases recidivism rates (i.e., the tendency of a convicted to repeat an undesirable behaviour after experiencing its negative consequences). It also puts the young detainees’ lives at serious risk.
Many young detainees suffer from cognitive disabilities, trauma, and mental health concerns that lead to attempted suicide and self-harm during and after detention. These behaviours require qualified therapeutic and acute psychiatric care and conditions to support their health, learning, and well-being. Even after they leave detention, young detainees need community-based care and support, including housing, education, and healthcare.
Commissioner June Oscar of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice agreed that the prison isn’t the best place for the young to learn. He said it doesn’t rehabilitate them but only perpetuates their trauma and youth offending cycles.
Commissioner Chin Tan of Race Discrimination mentioned that the trauma and behavioural complexities caused by structural racism and discrimination also play a major role. They specifically contributed to over-policing and high rates of detention.
Key Recommendations
Commissioner Hollonds underscored that federal, state, and territory governments had failed these children. Despite knowing that, this chronic crisis in youth justice is still dragging on for too long.
She said it’s time for Australia to take urgent actions to address these system failures. She called for urgent reforms and brought up the following:
- Raising the age of criminal responsibility (i.e., the minimum age that a child can be charged, prosecuted, and punished by law for a criminal offence) to 14 years;
- Implementing programs for early intervention and diversion and evidence-based prevention; and
- Having a national task force that addresses the underlying causes of juvenile crime with national collaboration and leadership across all states and territories in Australia.
AHRC also calls on all local governments in Australia to urgently address the issue and heed the advice of child development experts, prison officials, and senior judges calling for alternative approaches. This isn’t only to avert the increasing number of children getting hurt in detention but also juvenile delinquency through effective support systems.
Final Thoughts
As Commissioner Hollands remarked, a country that values children will have a greater sense of urgency in addressing underlying causes of harm to children. It’ll put effort into shifting investment upstream to and redesigning the basic support systems for children, whether they have criminal offences or not, as soon as possible. It’ll care for all children, providing environments that keep them safe and well. Hopefully, Australia can wholly achieve this.
