Skip to content Skip to footer

Victorian State Election 2022: Reduce harm arising from youth detention

Publication date: 3 November 2022

Jesuit Social Services’ Victorian State Election platform builds on 45 years of advocacy and action, to outline our vision for a just society across a range of interconnected social policy areas – from a fairer justice system, to support for people experiencing multiple and complex needs such as mental illness, trauma and bereavement, and preventing violence.

In this third in a series of pre-election blogs, we focus on Victoria’s youth justice system, and the need to reduce harm arising from the use of youth detention, informed by our #JusticeSolutions tours of effective youth justice systems abroad.

Jesuit Social Services has supported children and young people who have contact with the youth justice system for the last 45 years.

Through our decades of work with vulnerable children and young people, we witness the impact that contact with detention has on a young person’s ability to reach their potential every day.

That’s why we have a vision for a justice system that meets the needs of the entire community – including people who have contact with the system, staff, victims of crime, families and the broader community.

We believe that a critical part of this vision is intervening early and diverting children from detention to prevent trajectories to the adult justice system. A commitment to ensuring detention is only ever used as a last resort is vital.

For the extremely small number of young people for whom detention may be necessary, the system must emphasise education, rehabilitation and ensuring young people exit better off than when they entered.

#JusticeSolutions tours demonstrate what is possible

In 2017 and 2019, leaders from Jesuit Social Services embarked on two #JusticeSolutions tours of parts of Europe, the US and New Zealand to explore effective youth justice systems and understand what may be possible in transforming Victoria’s system.

In all of the jurisdictions we visited, we saw that justice system reform is underpinned by a clear, well-articulated vision, centred on addressing the needs of people and their families.

 

Fundamentally, we found that the most effective systems are the ones where young people are supported to address their individual and often complex needs. A safe youth detention system that focuses on setting children and young people up for success when they return to the community means safer workplaces, less crime and more cohesive communities.

We observed the importance of experienced and well-resourced staff in helping to build relationships with young people which facilitate positive pathways and reduce the chances of re-offending. For example, in Norway, prison officers require a minimum of two years of paid study. In Norway’s youth detention facilities, half of the staff are social workers. This focus has supported the country to have extremely low incarceration and recidivism rates in comparison to Australia

Fundamentally, we found that the most effective systems are the ones where young people are supported to address their individual and often complex needs. A safe youth detention system that focuses on setting children and young people up for success when they return to the community means safer workplaces, less crime and more cohesive communities.

New Cherry Creek facility must focus on supporting young people to successfully reintegrate into the community

The Victorian Government is soon to open its new Cherry Creek detention facility – the third youth detention facility in the state.

Since plans for the new facility were announced in 2017, Jesuit Social Services has consistently advocated against it. We believe it is unnecessary to build a detention facility when funds would be far better directed to intervene early and work intensively with at-risk children to prevent crime from occurring in the first place.

Having said that, we welcomed the Victorian Government’s 2022-2023 Budget announcement to reduce the capacity of the new facility from more than 200 beds to 56 beds.

Our #JusticeSolutions tours demonstrated that the most effective youth detention facilities around the world are designed as small, home-like centres, close to family and community, and share an overarching emphasis on education, independent living skills and the re-socialisation of young people.

We call on the new Victorian Government to ensure the Cherry Creek youth justice facility is a place of small, homelike units designed to support successful integration back into the community.

Our #JusticeSolutions tours demonstrated that the most effective youth detention facilities around the world are designed as small, home-like centres, close to family and community, and share an overarching emphasis on education, independent living skills and the re-socialisation of young people.

Additionally, staff in youth detention facilities play a crucial role in helping young people to turn their lives around. We support the introduction of a minimum workforce qualification for all custodial youth justice staff to reflect the challenges of the role and the impact appropriate staffing can have on rehabilitation and community safety.

Legislative reform should include commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility

The incoming Victorian Government must also commit to a series of important legislative reforms to better support children and young people who have contact with the youth justice system – and give them every opportunity to get their lives back on track.

This includes a commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility from the current 10 years to 14, in recognition of the fact that children detained between the ages of 10 and 14 are more likely, compared to those at older ages, to have sustained and frequent contact with the criminal justice system throughout their life.

We also call on the incoming Victorian Government to reduce remand numbers for children and young people, reintroduce sentencing options such as home detention and suspended sentences, and reverse legislative erosions to the dual track system, one of the foundations of Victoria’s youth justice system.

Our recommendations

  • Undertake youth justice reform including raising the age of criminal responsibility, repealing the presumption against dual track, extending the age of dual track to 25 and reducing remand numbers for children and young people;
  • Address the overrepresentation of children in out-of-home care, CALD children and Aboriginal children;
  • Divert children and young people from the justice system including by further investing in diversionary programs;
  • Reducing harm from youth detention including by ensuring Cherry Creek is a place of small, home-like units;
  • Enable better transitions from youth detention to the community.
Download the full Victorian Election Platform 2022
Want to find out more?

Browse some of our other articles and stories

Jesuit Social Services
Our thinking
Climate emergency and prisons don’t mix
On a 38-degree December day in the middle of the desert, 15 people incarcerated at Alice Springs Correctional Centre used t-shirts and pedestal fans to rip a hole in a ceiling, in a desperate attempt to escape the stifling heat of their overcrowded cells. The incident reignited calls to air-condition the prison – one recommendation of the Northern Territory Ombudsman, and firmly in step with the Territory’s human rights obligations to people deprived of their liberty.
Jesuit Social Services
Our thinking
Reflection: Australia must enact a Human Rights Act
Our thinking
Deepening our conversation on The Voice to Parliament
Jesuit Social Services supports a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament and throughout 2023, we are advocating for a YES vote in the upcoming referendum. We were honoured to welcome Amanda Watkinson, who is an Aboriginal woman and former Jesuit Social Services staff member, to speak to staff at our recent All Staff Day in June about what a YES vote would mean for Indigenous peoples and for Australia as a whole.
Jesuit Social Services
Our thinking
Reflection: Designing and implementing justice reinvestment in Australia
Read Andy Hamilton SJ's reflection on community led justice reinvestment to support our submission to the Justice Reinvestment Design Project.
People attending a training
Our thinking
Review of Victoria prison system highlights need for better trained workers
A recent report found Victoria’s prison system is rife with bullying, harassment, sexism and racism – creating an unsafe workplace for staff and impacting on the ability for prisoners to turn their lives around. Victoria must look at international best practice and ensure its staff are equipped and supported to perform challenging work.
A teenager sitting on a concrete wall
Our thinking
Raising the age of criminal responsibility
Raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years has been a key policy focus for Jesuit Social Services for almost a decade, and 2022 has seen us increase our advocacy to achieve this goal.
Boy doing school work
Our thinking
Victorian State Election 2022: Permanently extend access to Navigator to primary school aged children
Our Victorian election platform advocates for funding for initiatives that enable people to re-engage with education, training and employment, such as our Navigator and JVES programs.