IPA Research on Australia’s Youth Justice and Incarceration System
This submission shares with the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee research and analysis by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) relating to the issues raised as part of the inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system (the inquiry).
The inquiry’s terms of reference are relevant to new IPA research highlighting the shortcomings of the criminal justice system in preventing youth crime, and how alternative non-incarceration punishments for non-violent youth offenders—such as youth rehabilitation ranches—can produce better community safety outcomes and divert youth from a cycle of criminality, avoiding a life concentrated around imprisonment. The findings of the research are included in this submission as an attachment, entitled Youth Justice Reform Required to End the Costly Reliance on Incarceration.
The key findings of the research are that the current reliance on detention is not only unsustainable financially but is also not working to reduce crime.
The primary goal of the criminal justice system must be the protection of the community. Over the past ten years, overall spending on incarcerating youth offenders has increased by 66 per cent, however the severity of youth offending continues to rise, and the number of violent youth offenders has increased by 28 per cent over the last ten years.
Youth rehabilitation ranches, which have operated in the United States for over two decades, are an evidence-based model that if implemented could reduce spending and improve community safety outcomes by giving at-risk youth the tools to be productive members of society.
