Page 526 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 21 February 2012
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community. The ACT Greens want to build on these contributions by watching young people share their energy, enthusiasm, creativity and the appetite for lifelong learning to their communities.
I would like to note that the ACT is a small jurisdiction and we have access to some of the national critical thinkers in the area of youth justice. The ACT Greens believe we should be seeking out these people in order to gather more information about how we carry these reforms forward. The current task force which is responsible for implementing the recommendations from the youth justice inquiry is made up of representatives from the government and community sector. In December 2011 the ACT Greens called on the Assembly to pass a motion calling on the government to establish a youth justice advisory panel made up of experts in the areas of child and youth psychology, vulnerable families, trauma and abuse and youth justice.
In recent times with the release of the Human Rights Commission’s report into the ACT youth justice system there is a wealth of information on better practices in youth justice from Australia and internationally as well as promising practice from the local community, information we can use to address young people’s offending behaviours. The challenge here is to embed this as a standard practice and consistently drive our expectations and aspirations for performance so it is also in the best interests of the young person and, therefore, the best interests of all of us.
It seems a simple thing to achieve, yet we continue to struggle to achieve good outcomes for this small group of young people in the ACT. In fact the latest report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Juvenile detention population in Australia 2011, shows that over the four years from the June quarter 2007 to the June quarter 2011 the rate of detention increased in the ACT from 0.29 to 0.5 per 1,000. As noted in the Human Rights Commission’s report, we currently do not have a clear picture of how many of these young people were first-time offenders or recidivists. It is clear that there needs to be a focus on prevention and early effective intervention. This includes managing high risk, victims and community confidence and planning and performance improvement.
For children and young people at risk, prevention and support services need to be put in place to divert them from environments where they are likely to offend and to provide more positive and life-affirming alternatives and choices. Current or previous offenders being held under bail or remand need diversion, rehabilitation and support. These services can be effectively supplied only by the community, police and community services working collaboratively.
Of particular concern is the pattern of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged young people being more likely to be remanded in custody, especially those contending with difficulties such as homelessness, mental illness or substance misuse. It is important to understand that the root causes of crime, such as poverty and social disadvantage, cannot be ignored and left unaddressed because the result is that long-term cycles of offending continue.
The debate around young people who offend is often unhelpful and polarised—needs and deeds, victim and offender, individual and community, prevention and
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