Page 4347 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017

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(a) continue the work already underway in regard to the sharing of de-identified data to develop a better understanding of the number of young people exiting Bimberi who are subsequently incarcerated in the Alexander Maconochie Centre;

(b) explore the privacy, human rights, legislative and other implications of sharing data of young people and adult detainees for this purpose;

(d) ensure that the existing processes designed to enhance information sharing across the justice system are well coordinated.”.

In moving the amendment I thank Mr Coe and, of course, Mrs Kikkert for bringing this motion forward. I could not agree more than we should be aiming to reduce recidivism among young offenders. Of course, we should also be aiming to intervene early to prevent young people from becoming engaged with the youth justice system in the first place, something our award-winning 10-year blueprint for youth justice in the ACT has been remarkably successful in delivering over its first five years. I will speak more about this shortly.

It is clearly important that we monitor the effectiveness of youth justice services and the outcomes these services achieve for young people. In an ideal world we would have a picture of the outcomes for all young people who have been engaged in youth justice that provides meaningful information to inform improvements to the system into the future. This is a far more complex aspiration than the collection of recidivism data for young people who have experienced a sentence in detention at Bimberi Youth Justice Centre who go on to serve a sentence at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, or AMC. Nevertheless, measuring and reducing recidivism is important. That is why recidivism rates have been a strategic indicator for youth justice in the ACT for many years.

Results in this year’s Community Services Directorate annual report demonstrate low levels of recidivism for both young people who have served a custodial sentence and those who have been subject to community based orders. The 2016-17 recidivism rate for sentenced young people in custody within the youth justice system was 16.7 per cent, with recidivism for young people on community based orders being 15.8 per cent results. Both results are showing a downward trend over time and have significantly outperformed the 2016-17 targets.

This is a positive result and reflects the youth justice system’s focus on active case management, targeted intervention and prevention programs. While we should acknowledge and celebrate the success we have achieved to date, we should also, of course, always seek opportunities to improve, which is exactly what we are doing. As members are aware, the blueprint for youth justice was implemented in 2012 to guide the strategic direction for youth justice. This whole-of-government, whole-of-community plan has allowed the ACT government to monitor the

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