Queensland seems likely to join the Northern Territory in implementing ineffective and harmful youth justice policies, reports Alison Barrett.
Her article also gives an overview of policy submissions by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health organisations urging the implementation instead of a public health approach, with a focus on the social determinants of health and evidence-based solutions on early intervention and prevention.
Alison Barrett writes:
Amnesty International has called for national leadership on youth justice reform following yet another ‘tough on crime’ pledge by the man widely expected to be Queensland’s next Premier.
In a pre-election announcement, Queensland Opposition leader David Crisafulli said a Liberal National Party State Government would introduce mandatory solitary confinement for children in youth detention who use violence against staff.
Crisafulli’s ‘tough on crime’ agenda also includes legislating to give judges the ability to sentence youth offenders as adults for serious crimes.
Amnesty said in a statement that Australia’s youth justice system needs to meet its international human rights obligations, “including a complete ban on the use of solitary confinement against children”.
“Many of these children already spend far too much time locked in their cells due to staff shortages, and because Queensland’s detention centres are simply not fit for purpose,” said Kacey Teerman, Amnesty International Indigenous Rights spokesperson. “Prolonging their isolation will not solve any problems.
Amnesty’s call comes as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health organisations across the country are calling for governments to implement evidence-based policies, and to raise the age of criminal responsibility, according to submissions to the Senate Inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system (as reported in more detail towards the end of this article).
Election scorecard
An analysis by ANTAR – a First Nations advocacy organisation – of First Nations policy platforms shows that the major parties in Queensland are not acting on the evidence when it comes to youth justice and incarceration, Closing the Gap and treaty and truth-telling.
While the scorecard is developed for Queenslanders ahead of this week’s election, ANTAR said it highlights these policies for Australians more broadly “in the context of a dangerous shift” we are seeing from governments across the country particularly when it comes to youth justice.
“We are seeing the dangers of a government with a ‘mandate’ to implement ‘law and order’ measures in the Northern Territory’s newly elected Country Liberal Government,” ANTAR said.
On the incarceration and youth justice polices of the major parties in Queensland, ANTAR scored the Queensland Greens with a “thumbs up”, Liberal National Party a “thumbs down”, and Labor’s policies as a “mixed bag”.
In addition to its ‘adult crime, adult time’ policy, the LNP has pledged $50 million to a “regional reset program” which involves sending children “deemed at risk of committing a criminal offence to ‘reset camps’, and another $50 million on a global hunt for the “best ‘new idea’ for early intervention models in youth crime”.
The LNP will uphold the changes made by the current government to the Youth Justice Act that removed the internationally-enshrined human rights principle of “detention as a last resort”. The LNP’s position on raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility is not known.
Labor has announced the construction of two new youth “therapeutic” detention centres, and more funding to West Moreton Youth Detention Centre.
The Party also has plans to involve creating new On Country programs to provide cultural-based rehabilitation for First Nations children under the supervision of First Nations Elders to reduce ongoing offending.
The current Queensland Government has previously expressed support for raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years – following the rejection of efforts to raise the age to 14 years in 2022 – however, no confirmed plans have been made to implement this.
According to ANTAR, Labor should introduce more policy on alternatives to detention for young people as well as raising the age.
The Queensland Greens Party supports raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years, and diverting young people away from the criminal justice system. If elected, they will restore the principle of detention as a last resort.
NT Government under fire
Meanwhile, children and youth advocates have condemned the new NT Government for repealing the minimum age of criminal responsibility legislation last week, with concerns over the disproportionate and harmful impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth.
Anne Hollonds, National Children’s Commissioner, said lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years in NT “is a failure of all the support systems that should be helping these children”.
Evidence shows that addressing the root causes of offending – including critical social and cultural determinants of health – is what works to prevent crime by children, she said. The law and other ‘tough’ on youth crime laws are contrary to NT’s obligations under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
Hollonds has called for the Federal Government to “step up and show leadership on child wellbeing”.
Professor Nitin Kapur, President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Paediatric and Child Health Division, said the new law “is a step backward”.
“It will not only worsen outcomes for children, but it risks reinforcing cycles of intergenerational trauma”, he said. “Sending children to prison is not the answer.”
Kapur said other culturally safe alternatives exist, which the RACP believes can improve the health and social outcomes for children to put them on the right path.
The RACP is keen to work with the NT Government on a “health-first” approach to youth justice and public safety and to ensure that appropriate healthcare services are in place to support children in the youth justice system.
In addition to lowering the age of criminal responsibility and ‘tough on crime’ legislation passed last week, Gerard Maley, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Corrections, released this week the CLP’s Corrections Plan to “address the urgent need for increased correctional capacity”.
Among a raft of actions, the new Government plans to transfer young people in detention in Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre to Darwin Youth Detention Centre by December 2024.
Kirsten Wilson, Justice Reform Initiative advocacy coordinator, told the ABC this plan is very concerning, and “means that young people are away from their family supports, from their community, from the service support systems that sit around them and off their Country”.
Youth justice inquiry
Meanwhile, submissions to the Senate Inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system are calling for evidence-based approaches to youth justice.
Submissions by the Coalition of Peaks, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, First Peoples Disability Network, Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association, Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW, and Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia recommend a public health approach with a focus on the social determinants of health and evidence-based solutions on early intervention and prevention.
“When we acknowledge these social determinants as pathways, we can understand that children’s involvement in the justice system is a failure of the systems which should have provided support and care to children at a much earlier point,” the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association (AIDA) wrote in its submission.
Governments are also being urged to adhere to principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Child, which Australia has ratified, and the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Australia has endorsed. AIDA wrote that children’s rights in Australia “are not being protected”.
They also emphasised the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-determination. AIDA said that even though the 2023 Voice referendum failed to pass, “government commitments to truth telling and treaty must be implemented”.
A submission by the Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia (AHCWA) states the age of criminal responsibility in WA is 10 years, “well below the [United Nations] Convention on the Rights of the Child recommended minimum of at least 14 years”.
The Coalition of Peaks said that, in addition to fully supporting submissions or recommendations made by its member organisations, all governments should act urgently to fully implement the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, as well as implementing the recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s Review of the National Agreement.
Government efforts to align efforts with the National Agreement on Closing the Gap “is essential to achieving the goal of reducing incarceration rates by 2031”, according to the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW.
Other recommendations
Central Australian Aboriginal Congress made the following recommendations in its submission:
- Address housing insecurity, and adult alcohol and other drug use
- Improve adult literacy, referring to its submission of March 2021 to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training’s Inquiry into adult literacy and its importance.
- For the “small number of young people who need to be detained both for the protection of the community and for their own wellbeing”, alternative models for youth detention are available that focus on rehabilitation through secure, therapeutic care and education. They point to Diagrama Foundation in the UK as a good example.
- Youth support and diversion programs in remote communities, for example, Back Track in NSW, have been shown to lead to reduced drug and substance abuse and reoffending if culturally appropriate
- Aboriginal community-controlled health service in youth detention to ensure trust in healthcare and continuity of care.
First People’s Disability Network recommends:
- All jurisdictions need to move away from punitive approaches and focus on Justice Reinvestment strategies
- The use of spit hoods should be banned across all jurisdictions in youth detention
- All jurisdictions need to make significant investments in culturally responsive disability assessments and disability supports
- Movement towards First Nations control of child protection systems including working in this space with a culturally responsive disability rights lens
- ‘National minimum standards for youth justice’ must take the form of a National Human Rights Act to enshrine Australia’s international obligations including under the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and UN Convention on the Rights of Child
- First Nations cultural concepts of care and disability alongside the human rights framework must be adopted by all jurisdictions to ensure that approaches, services and supports are culturally safe and inclusive, trauma and disability rights informed.
Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia recommends:
- Urgent provision of culturally safe and clinically appropriate care to children in Banksia Hill Detention Centre and Unit 18 in Casuarina Prison
- Appoint an Aboriginal health service to provide culturally appropriate care for young people in detention
- Resource the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health sector to deliver culturally appropriate healthcare and address social determinants of health
- Establish robust and sustainable measures to monitor the recommendations of this inquiry
- Revisit recommendations made by the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report
- Establish a cross-portfolio taskforce to drive action towards structural change on intercepting matters and systems that make up the youth justice system
- Abolish responsibility for youth detention in an adult setting, and ensure it remains permanently within a youth detention facility
Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW recommends:
- Increased investment in the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, through holistic services co-developed and delivered by ACCOs
- Investment in mental health services, trauma-informed care, early intervention and prevention strategies
- Reform relationship between NSW Police and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to stop racial profiling and hardline policing – includes recognition and understanding of cultural needs, traditional healing practices and customary laws
- Consult and elevate Aboriginal voices in any systemic reform to truly understand the issues surrounding Aboriginal communities. “This approach ensures that reforms are informed by the lived experiences of those directly impacted, fostering a more equitable justice system.”
Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association recommends:
- Whole of government reform
- Increase access to culturally safe healthcare and family support services
- Ensure children are able to stay connected to culture through “extended kin networks and community”
- Increased resourcing and funding to ACCOs to deliver service responses and build community capacity
- Improve access to culturally safe prison healthcare
- AIDA supports calls for MBS and PBS to become available to all children and young people in prisons.
Coalition of Peaks recommends the Australian Government:
- Withdraw its reservation to Article 37 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child and engage with state and territory governments to ensure that no children are held in prisons designed for adults
- Establish a Commonwealth minimum age of criminal responsibility of at least 14 years, with no exceptions
- Strengthen legislative protection of human rights by introducing a comprehensive federal human rights framework.
“Youth justice and incarceration is a health, education, disability, economic and social, cultural and emotional wellbeing issue,” Coalition of Peaks write.
Further reading
‘Help way earlier!’ How Australia can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing, report by Australian Human Rights Commission, that includes 24 recommendations offering a roadmap for youth justice reform, tabled in parliament in September.
2024 Queensland election scorecard on Closing the Gap, incarceration and youth justice, cultural heritage protection and treaty and truth-telling, developed by ANTAR
See Croakey’s archive of articles on justice and policing
