Youth Off The Streets supports the royal commission into abuse at the Northern Territory’s Don Dale detention centre, but insists it must extend nation-wide.
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The ABC Four Corner’s report on the abuse and torture of our youth in the centre must lead to a national change in how we rehabilitate young offenders.
The incarceration of any young person should only ever be used after all other avenues of rehabilitation have been exhausted. These young people have suffered a life of poverty, abuse, homelessness, and have been exposed to criminal behaviour and drug and alcohol abuse from a young age, often through immediate family or close relatives.
They are not hardened criminals we are putting behind bars; these are young people calling out for help. We are calling for this commission to extend into a national inquiry to ensure this injustice is not prevalent in other states. We need to re-look juvenile detention and pursue alternative, more effective rehabilitation.
If people think this is a one-off problem, they are wrong. This is happening around the country – in NSW, gaols are over-populated and construction has started on demountable gaols, Berrima Correctional centre is possibly opening again. A path to disaster and violence is the only outcome from this approach. There are alternative, and more effective ways to reintroduce disaffected people into society. The actions shown on Monday are not one of them.
We need to provide our young people with appropriate assistance and treatment to help them to turn their lives around and ensure they do not return to previous negative activities.
We are calling for a national inquiry and action to be taken on its recommendations. 25 years ago, a commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody made 339 recommendations, but little effect on the prisoner population has been seen since 1995. This cannot be allowed to happen again. Action must be taken on recommendations.
The incarceration of our most vulnerable is a blight on our society. We recommend a national inquiry into the way we are rehabilitating young offenders. It’s time to heal our young people and not further traumatise them through state intervention. - Father Chris Riley, CEO and founder.