Advocate slams youth detention system ‘that increases harm and fails to reduce crime’

According to the Justice Reform Initiative (JRI), the latest Report on Government Services (RoGS), released by the Productivity Commission last Thursday, shows youth detention spending has surged by almost $400 million in just five years, rising from $720 million in 2019-20 and more than doubling over the past decade.

Youth detention now costs an average of $1.3 million per child per year – or more than $3600 a day. In Victoria, the cost exceeds $2.6 million per child per year.

Anne Hollonds AO, former National Children’s Commissioner and spokesperson for the JRI, says governments are pouring record funds into a system that increases harm and fails to reduce crime.

A suite of reports – including Hollonds’ major Help Way Earlier! report in 2024 and supplementary paper in 2025 – have reinforced the urgent need for systemic reform and national leadership, she says.

“We are spending record amounts on a system that almost all children come back to,” Hollonds says.

“Around 85 per cent of children released from detention return to sentenced supervision within 12 months.

“That is not success – it is a devastating policy failure that we continue to pay a growing premium for.”

Hollonds says instead of reducing crime or promoting community safety, detention compounds trauma, disconnects children from education, family and community, and increases the likelihood they will continue to commit crimes.

“Yet governments are doubling down on the most expensive and least effective response,” she says.

Statistics show on an average day, 734 children are imprisoned across Australia. Over the course of the year, 4742 children are cycled through detention.

First Nations children continue to be the most impacted, JRI claims.

On an average day, 61.7 per cent of all children in detention nationally, it shares, are First Nations. The number of First Nations children in detention has surged across multiple jurisdictions, including an 86 per cent increase in NSW in four years. In the Northern Territory, 95.2 per cent of children in detention are First Nations.

“You cannot claim to be serious about Closing the Gap while expanding a system that disproportionately harms Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children,” Hollonds says.

“What works is developmentally and age-appropriate prevention, early intervention, diversion, bail support and First Nations place based and community-led programs.

“These approaches reduce offending and build safer communities, but they remain underfunded while detention budgets balloon.”

Hollonds says the sharpest increases are now occurring in jurisdictions that had previously reduced youth detention.

Victoria has seen a 37 per cent rise in the average number of children imprisoned on an average day and now spends almost $350 million annually — the highest of any jurisdiction, she says.

South Australia and New South Wales have also increased the number of children in detention, up 23 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, and the number moving through detention centres over the year.

Other key insights from the Productivity Commission's RoGS data include:

• Australia now spends more than $1.1 billion a year incarcerating children and young people — an increase of $100 million in one year.
• Queensland continues to detain the most children on an average night (290) and now spends almost $300 million a year on youth detention.
• New South Wales continues to incarcerate more children and young people than anywhere else over the year (1561), and both New South Wales and South Australia recorded increases in children incarcerated on an average day and children imprisoned over the course of the year.

“These figures show the spread of ‘tough on crime’ politics into states that had been moving in a smarter direction,” Hollonds says.

“In Victoria, youth detention numbers were falling just two years ago. Now we are seeing a rapid reversal as punitive policies take hold. This is the same failed path we have already seen elsewhere.”

Hollonds says there is a clear need for major systemic change and national leadership to drive that change, including progressing the Federal Senate inquiry into youth justice to deliver accountability for evidence-based action across the federation.

“Australians deserve a smarter approach and a better return on their tax dollars.We know that evidence-based early intervention programs can reduce crime at a population level by 5 per cent to 31 per cent and lower reoffending rates among children by 50 per cent,” she says.

 “If even a fraction of this $1.1 billion was invested in prevention, early intervention and community-led solutions, including those led by First Nations groups, we would see far better outcomes for children and for community safety.”

The JRI has recently provided a submission to the Federal Inquiry on Australia’s Youth Justice and Incarceration System and maintains that the Federal Government must show leadership by implementing all recommendations of the Help Way Earlier! Report.

These include establishing a National Taskforce, appointing a Cabinet Minister for Children, and creating a Ministerial Council for Child Wellbeing.

A priority of the Taskforce, the JRI says, should be a National Child Justice Action Plan to urgently reform the justice system for children and young people across Australia.