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Young people develop plan for changes to youth justice system By Helen Connolly
Young people develop plan for changes they would make to SA’s youth justice system
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As Commissioner for Children and
Young People, I am responsible for ensuring South Australia fulfils its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). As part of my role, I am mandated to talk to children and young people about their experiences and how their lives could be improved.
A number of UNCRC Articles relate to children and young people’s contact with youth justice. Articles 2 and 12 relate to ‘a child’s right to be heard’. Article 24 further states that if a child has been accused of an offence they have the ‘right to be heard directly and not only through a representative or an appropriate body at all stages of the process’. Article 40 states that ‘children’s rights in juvenile justice proceedings, include their right not to be discriminated against, the right to an interpreter (if they do not understand proceedings) and the right to privacy’.
Article 40 also imposes obligations on State parties that include setting a minimum age (in-line with the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child), establishing a specialised court, laws, and procedures specifically designed to meet the needs of children and young people, taking into account their developmental capacity and including use of alternative methods to ensure they are kept out of ‘institutional care’. Further, General Comments 12 and 24 explicitly state that ‘the right to be heard is fundamental to a fair trial’.
Since commencing in the role of Commissioner in 2017, I’ve met with a number of children and young people who have been in direct contact with South Australia’s youth justice system. They have told me during consultation sessions, focus groups, and one-on-one meetings that they have concerns about their experiences, and would like to see changes made. I have heard similar concerns through adult advocates.
Advocates are well aware of issues associated with youth justice, including the social determinants of offending. They know the pathways into the system, the lack of therapeutic interventions, the criminalising of childhood, and the significant over representation of Aboriginal young people. However, very little of the formal reporting on these issues reflects the voices, views and opinions of young people themselves.
In 2019, I devised a project that placed seven young people aged 16 - 21 years who had direct experience of SA’s youth justice system front and centre, to advise on system change. The project’s overall goal was to take a system problem solving approach working with young people to develop an advocacy plan that could build a better system.
Project partner Australian Red Cross, provided individual support for each of the participants; this was crucial to ensuring participants could remain engaged throughout the six month period of the project. And to enable participants to feel confident in joining a group, the Australian Red Cross also delivered leadership development skills as well as advisory and advocacy knowledge.
Each young person involved had faced considerable challenges throughout their lives. They had all experienced significant periods of detention as juveniles and young adults, and were well placed to share their views on what worked and what didn’t from their perspective. Few had ever been given an opportunity to have their views heard, let alone been asked for ideas and opinions on ways their experience of youth justice could be improved.
They told me that because of the circumstances that led to their offending behaviour, they felt they had been “written off ”. They believed that adults had assumed they had “nothing to contribute” and that “their rights didn’t matter as much as other people’s”.
Their lives were transient and challenging, characterised by family conflict, personal mental health concerns, homelessness and financial difficulties. The Australian Red Cross supported each participant with referrals to mental health services, housing organisations, and mentoring services, as well as providing assistance completing Centrelink applications and access to food parcels when needed.
The engagement process presented a steep learning curve for the participants. By stepping them through system mapping, problem identification, solution generation, and action planning, insightful issues were generated and prioritised for action in group sessions. They considered how the youth justice system had developed, its value to the community, and its long term benefits, including understanding how a society best operates within a system rather than outside it. This helped to reinforce the usefulness of rules, rule makers and rule enforcers as stabilising, rather than controlling elements.
YOUNG PEOPLE’S RECOMMENDATIONS
At the project’s conclusion, the young people devised a set of actions and recommendations they felt would have a positive impact on children and young people coming into direct contact with the youth justice system. Their eight recommendations are: 1. Establish a youth court advisory process that provides information to young people on the whole youth justice process;
Review the current system of bail to ensure conditions set are realistic and goal orientated and meet individual needs and circumstances; Use time spent waiting in a court cell more productively, including giving young people access to information and activities that can help them to remain calm; Provide young people an opportunity to provide information to Police and the Court confidentially to ensure conditions are suited to individual circumstances; Explain to young people what role each person in the court room plays prior to them entering; Re-arrange court rooms so that they are less intimidating to young people; Provide opportunities for young people to speak confidentially with police and court officials so that they are supported to comment, respond, and express themselves in the court environment without fear of intimidation; and Those in positions of authority consider these recommendations within the context of Australia’s new National Child Safety Principles.
SETTING REALISTIC BAIL CONDITIONS
Two key recommendations young people felt would make a significant difference to young people’s experience of youth justice is setting of bail conditions and use of fines. They see a one size fits all approach currently being applied – one that fails to take into account individual circumstances. Inevitably, this produces breaches that place pressure on young people and also on all other parts of the youth justice system, with the breaches then becoming the focus of interactions between young people, police and the court. They believe a better youth justice system would use bail conditions as a way of supporting young people not to reoffend – setting individualised, achievable conditions informed by the young person’s situation, and determined in discussion with the magistrate. These conditions would include the capacity to participate in community activities that promote reintegration and rehabilitation of young people back into the community.
APPLYING MINIMAL USE OF FINES
For some young people, being fined means they cannot afford to eat or buy credit for a mobile phone that would otherwise enable them to retain vital communication lines with important people in their lives. Participants expressed concern about fines not being universally or consistently applied, and how high they are in relation to typical levels of income available to young people. They said a better system would review the use of fines, look at the low income levels of young people and ensure that fines issued did not place young people under further financial stress.
CONCLUSION
There is a growing body of developmental psychological research, that acknowledges the impact a child or young person’s individual circumstances, developmental capacity and background has on a their ability to understand and engage in the youth justice process. All who interact with young people who come into contact with the youth justice system – SAPOL Officers, Arresting Officers, Bail Sergeants, Courts Administrators, Judges and Magistrates – have their own critical part to play in adjusting their interactions to take each young person’s individual situation into account.
Research has shown that ‘limiting the autonomy of children has a consequence of being a self-fulfilling cycle of learned helplessness, which can result in behaviour becoming worse. Other studies show that active participation in decision-making processes helps children and young people understand and accept the final decision made in relation to their offence, making it easier for them to act on any ‘orders’ they receive. Active participation can also allow young people to see and experience their skills in reasoning develop and gain confidence in expressing their point of view.
What matters most, is that the recommendations these young people have courageously and determinedly made be considered by those who have the authority to make change. If these changes were to be implemented the lives of South Australian children and young people who come into contact with South Australia’s youth justice system will benefit from changes young people themselves have told us need to be made.
View the CCYP Making Change in Youth Justice three-minute video containing recommendations made by young people in their own words, via the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=9PqEXUD5uec Download and read the full ‘Making Change in Youth Justice’ User Guide via the following link: https://www.ccyp.com.au/reports/ccypreports/ B
