Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Youth justice system

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (1867)

Incorporated pursuant to order of Council of 7 September 2021:

My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Youth Justice and the action I seek is for her to put in place a youth justice reinvestment model.

As numerous reports over recent weeks and months have shown, Victoria’s youth justice system is in crisis. Youth detention centres at both Parkville and Malmsbury have come to resemble something out of Lord of the Flies, with assaults on detainees and staff becoming a regular feature of the system. Staff say they fear being killed at work.

Years of neglect and underfunding have created a crisis-driven system where children, often vulnerable children from our child protection system, are being crammed into these centres out of sight and out of mind. It comes as no surprise then that numerous expert groups, such as the Victorian Council of Social Service, have regularly stated that the placement of children in these centres leads to further criminalisation. Repairing this system, therefore, is not just about affording dignity to these offenders, which is important; it is foremost about community safety.

This is why VCOSS have outlined a model of justice reinvestment, whereby resources that would ordinarily be spent on incarceration are redirected to community-based initiatives that seek to prevent crime before it occurs. Greater investment in such programs, tailored to our youth justice services, would be an important step in repairing our broken youth justice system and keeping our community safe.

Unfortunately, community sector organisations have been ravaged by cuts and neglect from the Andrews Labor government. Across the board, the significant cuts from last year’s budget must be reversed—taking into account the huge amount of work there is to do supporting vulnerable Victorians following the many failures of the Andrews government over the last two years.

We urgently need a new approach, not only to how much we spend on youth justice but to how we choose to spend it. I urge the minister to consider this proposal.