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Keywords: Juvenile Detention

  • AUSTRALIA

    State-sanctioned child abuse serves no-one

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 July 2023
    1 Comment

    A Supreme Court judge in Western Australia has banned solitary confinement at Banksia Detention Centre, shining a light on the controversial practices within the nation's juvenile justice centres. Yet, public response remains muted despite the troubling revelations, raising concerns about systemic failures, the need for empathy and societal responsibility towards our youth.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Juvenile injustice

    • Julian Butler
    • 22 February 2022
    5 Comments

    Having previously spent time as lawyer working predominantly in the Children’s Court of Victoria, there isn’t too much about the State’s treatment of young people that shocks me. That is, until a few weeks ago when I was drawn to the final item of The Weekend Australian’s editorial column. Under the heading, ‘Hurt boy’s inhuman treatment’, was set out the details of a 15-year-old West Australian boy who had been ‘locked alone in a glass-walled observation cell of a juvenile detention centre in the southern suburbs of Perth for 79 days.’    

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The ebbtide of responsibility

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 July 2021
    9 Comments

    The tidal movement from treating children as persons each with their own dignity, and worthy of respect and of encouragement to a good future, to treating them as adult and incorrigible criminals worthy only of punishment is both irrational and injurious of society as well as of the children themselves. Yet it is deeply rooted in the mindset of all Australian Governments.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Raising the age of criminal responsibility

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 15 June 2021
    9 Comments

    Those two little boys turn ten this year, reaching a milestone most Australians celebrate simply as reaching 'double figures'. Yet with these double figures comes a new threat most Australians aren’t aware of: they will also reach the age of criminal responsibility.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A pause to reflect in the wake of the youth justice storm

    • Julie Edwards
    • 15 March 2017
    6 Comments

    At present the tornado that has raged in youth justice has abated. Disturbing images from Don Dale led to a royal commission in the Northern Territory. In Melbourne, public fears about gang violence, carjackings, robberies and youth detention centre riots were followed by the placing of many young people in an adult facility and a pledge to build a new prison for young offenders. This pause offers time for reflection on the human reality and needs of children who are involved in the justice system.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Maintaining children's rights amid youth detention crises

    • Kate Galloway
    • 13 January 2017
    4 Comments

    The Minister has committed to improving youth detention facilities, the appointment of 100 more staff, and revision of Victoria's youth detention policy. But in doing so, she has sheeted home blame to the former government, and has accused lawyers for the children of pandering to ideology. The government's discourse continues the tough-on-crime narrative rather than acknowledging the causes and contexts of juvenile offending and the consequences of appalling facilities on the youth who are detained.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Responsibility for royal commissions' effectiveness lies with us

    • Ann Deslandes
    • 11 October 2016
    2 Comments

    'Finally!' we might think, regarding the commencement of the royal commission after the mainstream revelation of the abuses at Don Dale and other juvenile detention centres. But is this just another deferral to a disinterested power? What can we hope will come of moves like this from leaders whose own legitimacy feels so craven and thin? I suspect not much. There are already claims the royal commission into the protection and detention of children in the NT is on shaky ground.

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  • CARTOON

    The long roots of Don Dale abuse

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 27 July 2016
    1 Comment

    This week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Kids in custody

    • Graham West
    • 06 October 2010
    9 Comments

    Young people should be held accountable for their actions. But that does not explain how almost 80 per cent of those on remand in a detention centre in NSW will not end up with a custodial sentence. If custody is a last resort, how can we get the balance wrong 80 per cent of the time?

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