Over the last year Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system has certainly had its fair share of media time, with a nationwide narrative of youth crime, offending and tragedy in detention settings
This week, there was an announcement of a national inquiry into this system – what could be an important opportunity to elevate the voices of young people in detention, and to advocate for their rights and best interests.
On 11 September 2024, the national Senate referred Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Reference Committee for inquiry. The inquiry will examine:
- The outcomes and impacts of youth incarceration in jurisdictions across Australia
- The over-incarceration of First Nations children
- The degree of compliance and non-compliance by state, territory and federal prisons and detention centres with the human rights of children and young people in detention
- The Commonwealth’s international obligations in regard to youth justice including the rights of the child, freedom from torture and civil rights
- The benefits and need for enforceable national minimum standards for youth justice consistent with international obligations.
The Training Centre Visitor, Shona Reid, sees opportunities such as this to focus on human rights and child rights. She told us:
“The potential risk for human rights violations in any detention system is a very real risk, and this further increases when we are detaining young people specifically. This is why oversight bodies are essential in holding a rights-based approach to monitoring the conduct of these facilities.
It is simply not okay for our nation’s leaders to stand by and say nothing, to do nothing, while children and young people are living very real experiences that are infringing on their rights.
If we are to prove our worthiness as a mature advanced society here in Australia, we must get serious about adhering to and upholding the rights of our most vulnerable people. I am hopeful that the inquiry will be more than mere words, but that it will lead to real and meaningful change for children and young people in detention.”
The inquiry comes in light of a range of regressive steps taken by states and territories when it comes to children and young people’s rights in youth justice and detention, including the:
- Conditions of youth detention in Western Australia, and the tragic deaths of two young people while in detention
- Removal of the principle of ‘detention as a last resort’ in Queensland
- Decision not to raise the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility to 14 in Victoria
- Plans to lower the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility to 10 and re-introduce the use of spit hoods on children in the Northern Territory
- Lack of meaningful progress towards preventing harmful isolation practices, including solitary confinement. Under international law, solitary confinement for children and young people is considered to be cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment – or even, in some circumstances, torture.
Here in South Australia the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility is 10 years old, meaning that children who are in still in primary school can be arrested by police, face criminal charges, and be sent to detention. And the Training Centre Visitor’s 2022-23 Annual Report detailed a range of concerning practices and treatment of children and young people detained at the Adelaide Youth Training Centre including:
- Isolations, lock downs and segregations
- Limited access to education and rehabilitative programs
- Significant gaps in trauma-informed responses to mental health needs and self-harming
Shona says:
“Ordinarily I would be very excited about an inquiry that examines our youth detention systems response and reaction to the contemporary needs of our society and youth populations. But in this instance, I hold my breath with a level of trepidation about the unknown.
I say this, because in recent times I have witnessed an unprecedented targeting and demonising of children and young people right across our country. I have seen an unprecedented call for punishment of children as young as (if not younger) 10 years of age.
Whilst the need for community protections and safety is real, there is also a very real need for our responses, our systems and our laws to be mindful, considered and forward thinking. There is a need for our responses to be effective and not inflict further harm that will be played out in the future years of our children’s lives.
My colleagues and I across the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Commissioners, Guardians and Advocates network, and Australia’s OPCAT National Preventive Mechanism, have called for nationally consistent approaches to preventing torture, rights abuses and harmful responses towards children who need help and rehabilitation, not punitive criminal justice responses. It is our very real belief that these layers of trauma have contributed to offending behaviours… and inflicting a system that causes more trauma is not helping. It is hurting, and it is only creating more harm and more risk down the track.
This is a human rights crisis, and we are accountable for fixing it.
I intend to make a submission calling on the federal government to own their responsibility. And I will continue to advocate for the South Australian government to own theirs.”
The deadline for submissions to the Committee is 10 October 2024, and the inquiry report will be handed down 26 November 2024.
To find out more, or to make a submission, head to the inquiry website.
For more advocacy in this space check our previous blog posts on raising the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility, enacting the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture – and in case you missed it – last week’s blog on rights in detention.
