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Articles on Youth detention

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The youth justice system should consider alternative community-based models that better recognise the ability for young people to abandon crime. Dean Lewins/AAP

Young crime is often a phase, and locking kids up is counterproductive

Australia should look to the New Zealand model, which has a strong focus on community, and recognises that the majority of young people grow-out of participating in crime.
Vulnerable children caught up in the criminal justice system can suffer long-lasting consequences, even from a short period behind bars. from www.shutterstock.com

Locking up kids damages their mental health and sets them up for more disadvantage. Is this what we want?

Children are still being held in police cells and juvenile detention for low-range offences, under alarming conditions. Here’s how their mental health and future prospects suffer.
Images like this one aired by the ABC’s Four Corners programme helped trigger a Royal Commission - but its recommendations have still not been acted on. ABC Four Corners

One year on from Royal Commission findings on Northern Territory child detention: what has changed?

One year after the Royal Commission into Northern Territory child detention recommended big changes, little of substance has been done to tackle the problem by the NT Labor government.
Sirley Silveira Paixao, an immigrant from Brazil seeking asylum, kisses her 10-year-old son Diego Magalhaes, after he is released from immigration detention in Chicago on July 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

Drugging detained children is like using a chemical straitjacket

Psychotropic medication is ‘pharmaceutical violence’ against migrant children and other incarcerated youth throughout the United States. Drug addiction is one consequence.
Juvenile residents sit in a classroom at detention center in Atlanta. AP Photo/David Goldman

Ending sexual assault in youth detention centers

Research reveals that the factors that put youth at risk of sexual assault while in custody are significantly different from those that put adults at risk in prison.
If youths with brain impairment had been identified and supported early, their entry into the justice system could have been avoided entirely. from shutterstock.com

Almost every young person in WA detention has a severe brain impairment

New research assessing young people in WA detention found 89% were severely impaired in at least one area of brain function. One in three had fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).

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