Page 4348 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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effectiveness of the ACT youth justice system. The progress of the blueprint’s implementation has been reported to the Assembly regularly since it commenced.
This government is committed to reducing the number of young people involved with the youth justice system, and it has been successful in meeting this aim since the introduction of the blueprint. The blueprint has a focus on early intervention, prevention and diversion, with custody as a measure of last resort. The success of the blueprint in preventing young people from offending and entering the youth justice system is demonstrated by the decrease in offence rates over time and the decrease in the number of young people who experience a period of detention. For example, since 2011-12, there has been a greater than 30 per cent decrease in the number of young people detained in Bimberi. There has also been a greater than 30 per cent decrease in young people on community based supervision orders.
I am pleased to note that these decreases in overall supervision rates have been matched by similar decreases in supervision rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. Since 2011-12 the ACT has also experienced a steady and sustained decline in the number of young people being apprehended by ACT Policing. That means the blueprint, with its early intervention approach, has resulted in a safer community for all Canberrans.
As members would be aware, we have reached the halfway point for the blueprint, and earlier this year I directed the Community Services Directorate to establish a new task force to take stock of how far we have come and to set directions for the second five years of the strategy. I have asked the task force to focus particularly on three areas: the continued over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in the youth justice system; the experience of young people with disabilities; and how we can better support young people in their transition from detention back into the community.
The blueprint task force will meet for the third time this Friday and has already identified some key focus areas for the second five years of the strategy. Over the coming months the task force will lead a series of think tanks to work with the community on these issues. One area of focus is through-care for the youth justice system, that is, how we support young people who are incarcerated to prepare for release and support them post release from Bimberi.
The Public Advocate and the Children and Young People Commissioner, Ms Jodie Griffiths-Cook, facilitated a through-care and youth justice roundtable discussion on 10 October, and input from this roundtable will inform the task force in its work. I am pleased we have such strong engagement from community partners across the system in undertaking this important work.
The youth justice system is one we actually know quite a lot about. Recidivism rates currently measure the return of young people to the youth justice system after receiving a final court order and are an indicator of outcomes for young people, in particular, where the interventions have been successful in assisting young people to exit the youth justice system. Recidivism rates are, however, just one measure of rehabilitation.
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