In her most recent submission, South Australia’s Guardian for Children and Young People, Shona Reid outlines the reality of youth detention in South Australia and calls for real and meaningful change.
As a response to the federal government’s recent senate inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system, The Guardian’s submission makes 15 recommendations for the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, necessary to improve the lives children and young people.
“The Inquiry called for submissions outlining the state of the youth justice system, particularly youth detention, and what this means for children and young people’s human rights,” Shona said.
“I have spoken repeatedly about serious concerns I hold, around conditions of detention for children and young people in South Australia. These concerns are ongoing, and there should be nothing in my submission that comes as a surprise to those in government.
But it is a vital part of my role to ensure that we never lose sight of the true reality of youth detention, when we are discussing youth justice reforms. So I am reporting this information yet again, and I call on everyone in our community to pay attention.”
Throughout her submission, The Guardian highlights key ongoing issues raised by children and young people detained at the Adelaide Youth Training Centre (AYTC). This includes limited access to education and rehabilitation programs, significant gaps in health and wellbeing supports and use of harmful practices such as isolation and segregation.
“We need to ask ourselves if we are indeed actually really helping young people in youth detention facilities and youth justice more generally,” Shona said.
“We need to come to a realisation that if we are not helping, then we are actually contributing greater harm and greater trauma, not just for the individual young person, but for our collective community.”
The submission presents the voices of children and young people in detention who expressed the impacts of these human rights concerns. As young people told our advocates:
“Imagine your kids in here. You wouldn’t just leave them locked in this room.”
“We are just left in our rooms with our emotions and thoughts and when we come out we just explode”.
The submission also outlines most recent data regarding children and young people who are disproportionately criminalised and overrepresented in youth detention, including highly alarming figures regarding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people. As recently published in The Guardian’s 2023-24 Annual Report, 68 per cent of the 692 admissions to AYTC that financial year were for Aboriginal children and young people.
“I am devastated that every time I release a submission or report I am publishing either static or worsening outcomes around detention rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people,” Shona said.
“What makes it worse is that we already know what needs to happen to fix it. Aboriginal leaders, children and young people and communities hold those solutions, and the call for action is strong.
“It is up to government to come to the table.”
Submission calls on leaders to “consider the evidence”
In making recommendations, The Guardian’s submission addresses needs and issues raised by children and young people themselves, Aboriginal peoples in South Australia, and other experts in the field. Among recommendations to the inquiry are:
- Prohibiting harmful and unnecessary isolation of children and young people in detention.
- Detention facilities be required to track, record and report publicly on the length of time children and young people are held in isolation.
- Introducing minimum standards for rehabilitation programs within youth detention facilities to ensure children in detention have real and meaningful education services and evidence based rehabilitative programs.
- Raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14-years-old in all Australian jurisdictions, with no exceptions.
- Governments renew their focus on Closing the Gap Target 11 to reduce the rate of Aboriginal children and young people in detention by at least 30 per cent by 2031.
- For South Australia – alongside all Australian jurisdictions – to legislate and adequately fund an Australian National Preventive Mechanism, in line with Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.
The Guardian has observed that much of the information reported to the inquiry will be well known solutions that have been discussed in historical reports, inquiries and Royal Commissions. And yet, despite this knowledge, backwards steps being taken across the country ultimately fail those most in need of support.
At a state level, the South Australian government is proposing “posting and boasting” laws that would see people as young as 10 years old, facing up to two years in detention if they post themselves or others involved in an apparent criminal offence to promote the act or seek glorification from it.
This is a disproportionate and severe penalty – equivalent to penalties for assault, handling a firearm when under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and indecent filming. The Guardian is currently preparing a more detailed submission on the topic of these proposed laws, which will be published in the coming weeks.
Similarly, in other Australian jurisdictions, backwards steps include governments abandoning commitments to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility, planning to re-introduce archaic and barbaric practices such as spit hoods and removing the principle of detention being a last resort.
Reflecting on these conditions and the question of ‘where to, from here’, Shona said:
“The recommendations in my submission are not new, but they are essential.
Children and young people, families, and communities – on all sides of politics and ideological beliefs – are tired of rhetoric.
I’m tired of it too, of having the same conversations again and again. So, I urge the Committee to be bold and courageous, to consider the evidence, to stand with oversight and advocacy bodies; and, most importantly, to stand behind children and young people in calling for and enacting the change urgently needed.”
A full copy of the Guardian for Children and Young People’s submission can be found here.
The Legal and Constitutional Affairs Reference Committee anticipates a final report will be published on February 28, 2025.
