Australian Childhood Foundation acknowledges the Government’s announcement of a new Violence Reduction Unit, and school‑based initiatives to support at‑risk students, modelled on Scotland’s approach. These measures highlight the urgent need to invest in prevention, and to support children and young people at the right time, to change their trajectories. Critically, this must also include culturally appropriate, community‑designed, and led initiatives that can effectively address the over‑representation of First Nations children and young people in youth justice systems.

The challenges facing children and young people today are largely the result of problems created by adults.

Overwhelmingly, children and young people engaged with youth justice have histories or current experiences of child abuse, family violence, and exploitation. Many have been, are currently, or should have been known to child protection authorities. These systems have often failed them. Even education systems have not effectively addressed barriers to their engagement in schooling. Care and support systems consider them too challenging to include in programs, or worse, have criminalised them as a result of their engagement. These problems are the failings of adults and systems.

They are not the failings of children and young people.

Without doubt, there is a small minority of children and young people engaging in dangerous criminal behaviour. Community safety is critical. But, we cannot deny that this is a very small proportion of the overall number of children and young people engaging in youth offending. We also cannot deny the profound vulnerability of these children and young people, compounded by system failings, that has set them on this path.

We must not lose sight of the fact that, despite their offending behaviour, they are still children. Many have unmet developmental needs as a result of abuse, neglect, and violation. Many have diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions.

Whilst not excusing their behaviour, we must continue to hold compassion for them, accepting our responsibilities and failings as adults. We must manage the risks related to what they are doing, whilst addressing their unmet needs. Entrenching them further into the justice system does little to address the underlying drivers of how they ended up in this situation. It compounds the risks they, and therefore the community, face.

When we talk about addressing youth offending, the argument generally includes the rights of the community to be safe in their houses, schools, and neighbourhoods, and the need for punishment, restoration, accountability, and responsibility‑taking on the part of the child or young person. But what does that mean for a young person engaging in offending behaviour who has also experienced abuse, neglect, or exploitation at the hands of adults who should have protected them? What of their rights to be safe in their own houses, schools, or neighbourhoods? Who has been ensuring their rights were upheld?

Overwhelmingly, the perpetrators of these acts against them have not been punished, held to account, nor made to engage in restorative practices. How then can a child or young person in this situation make sense of the inherent injustice in the dual standards being applied? Why is more expected of them as children and young people than of the adults who perpetrated abuse, violation, and exploitation upon them?

If we want to change the trajectories of children and young people engaged in youth justice, regardless of the crimes they are committing, we must make sense of their behaviour in the context of what has happened to them, and their unmet developmental needs. We must hold compassion for their experiences of victimisation, and not see them solely as perpetrators of offences who must be punished. Accountability and restoration must be located in broader processes of healing and meaning‑making. Punitive responses do nothing to address their unmet needs. Those unmet needs are significant drivers of their behaviour. Addressing their deeds without their needs will not succeed in creating safer communities.

On this basis, the Foundation condemns the actions of the Victorian Government with the introduction of “Adult Time for Violent Crime” reforms. Children’s safety cannot be secured by pairing punitive sentencing with piecemeal prevention. Increasingly, governments across the country are implementing youth justice policy that contravenes evidence of what works, in the interests of expediency.

We need a multi‑layered approach that understands and meets the needs of children and young people engaged in offending, increases community compassion through awareness and education, and sustains investment in evidence‑informed, culturally strong reforms over time. Too often, good reforms fall by the wayside in the face of political cycles. The benefits of investment in good reforms often transcend these cycles.

Real safety comes when we build consistent, systemic support that ensures children’s rights to safety, protection, and environments where their developmental needs are met. It begins in families, is strengthened in communities, and is sustained in schools. When children are victims of abuse, violence, and exploitation, they need access to therapeutic services to assist them to heal and make sense of their experiences. This gives them the chance to heal, grow, and thrive long before they reach crisis.

At Australian Childhood Foundation, we see every day what works: prevention and trauma‑informed therapeutic care. We see thousands of children and young people who have experienced abuse and trauma through our services, and help them recover and rebuild meaningful lives.

Reforms that focus on punishment miss the opportunity to invest in what truly makes communities safer:

• Engaging children early,
• Supporting families,
• Building culturally safe systems of care that prevent crime before it happens,
• Restorative practices should be available to children and young people who have themselves been victims of abuse and violence, alongside healing programs such as counselling, trauma‑informed therapy, culturally safe supports, and community‑based care.

Children deserve hope, not harsher sentences.

We call on policymakers to reconsider these reforms, and commit to approaches that recognise the unique developmental needs of children. We have a responsibility, and a moral obligation, to create a safer future where they are protected, supported, and given the chance to thrive.

Want to explore the research?

The Centre for Excellence in Therapeutic care has authored a research brief and hosted an expert panel exploring the criminalisation of children in care. Follow the links below to find out more.

https://learn.childhood.org.au/care-criminalisation-issues-and-current-research-research-brief/

https://learn.childhood.org.au/when-systems-designed-to-protect-do-harm/