Australia’s National Children’s Commissioner and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner have urged the Northern Territory Government to rethink a suite of contentious changes to the Territory’s Youth Justice Act, aligning themselves with child health and legal experts calling for a pause.
The government’s proposed amendments, due to go before the NT Parliament this week, would unwind a range of protections by scrapping detention as a last resort for children, reinstating the use of spit hoods, broadening what constitutes “reasonable force” for Youth Justice Officers and adding to the list of serious offences that render a child ineligible for diversion programmes.
National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds: “We all want our communities to be safe places where children can thrive, and I’m sure we can all agree that responses to these complex social issues should be based on evidence and expert advice.
“The NT Government’s proposed actions fly in the face of the evidence we have of what will make communities safer.
“I understand that the NT Children’s Commissioner has not been consulted, despite numerous attempts by her to provide constructive counsel on these proposed legislative changes that will have a significant impact on children and their families in the territory.
“We know that making the justice system more punitive does not work to prevent crime by children. What the evidence shows is that when children are locked up and brutalised by the justice system, they are more likely to go on to commit more serious and violent crimes. This does nothing to make our communities safer.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss: “Children’s exposure to the justice system is a symptom of systemic racism and intergenerational trauma that compounds complex unmet needs and underlying issues such as poverty, homelessness, disability, health and mental health issues and domestic, family and sexual violence.
“We should not be further damaging young people and any hope they may have for a better future by introducing harsher measures that don’t actually make communities safer.
“What we need our governments – including the Northern Territory government – to be providing culturally appropriate support for vulnerable children and their families that’s delivered in a coordinated way by suitably trained professionals.”
Hollonds has previously pointed to national and international evidence that early, coordinated support for children and families reduces offending, highlighting work her office released last year setting out a rights-based approach to reform.
The NT Government’s package would mark a significant shift from reforms that followed the 2017 Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, which urged a therapeutic, rehabilitative approach and tighter limits on the use of restraints in youth detention.
Commissioner Hollonds said she understood the NT Children’s Commissioner had not been consulted on the bill. The NT Government has been contacted for comment.
“Commissioner Kiss and I urge the NT Government to listen to the experts such as their own NT Children’s Commissioner and act on the evidence about what works to address the unmet needs for child safety and wellbeing, to prevent crime and to make communities safer.”
