Salvos urge trauma-informed approach to youth justice
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
BY KIRRALEE NICOLLE
The Salvation Army has been advocating for governments across Australia to amend their approaches to youth justice matters, most urgently to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years.
Mieke Waters, an Advisor with The Salvation Army’s Policy and Advocacy team, said the matter of youth justice was a crucial one. She said there was a lot of stigma and misunderstanding about why and how young people became entangled in the justice system, what caused young people to offend and how best to respond to young people who offend.
“[It] requires The Salvation Army’s ongoing involvement to challenge the public narrative and to challenge some of the reforms proposed by governments at the moment, which are often hardline and punishment-oriented,” Mieke said. “We know [that] punishment isn’t the most effective response for the majority of young people who encounter justice systems. It does not address the root cause of the behaviour.”
The Salvation Army’s recent submission into the NSW Youth Justice Inquiry includes 35 recommendations developed through wide consultation, including with the Youth stream, adult services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ministry, Research, and Safeguarding teams. The submission is informed by both relevant research and the frontline experience of The Salvation Army in working with young people and families.
Four of these recommendations are specifically focused on the effects of current youth justice measures on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people and families.
The Salvation Army’s Youth Services National Model of Care is informed by multiple evidence-based frameworks, including the Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) framework, and Trauma Informed Care (TIC). TSA’s method of service delivery to young people is also informed by the four core frameworks of Attachment Theory, Developmental Theory, Social Learning Theory and Systems Theory.
Mieke said the cause of offending behaviour can be linked with developmental maturity and an understanding of cause and effect. Offending behaviours can also result from experiences of poverty and financial hardship, homelessness and housing instability, family violence, lack of positive connections and an intergenerational history of offending.
“What we’re seeing is when a young person is incarcerated or entangled in the justice system in a way which is focused on punishment, we’re not seeing that create positive behaviour change,” Mieke said. “We’re not seeing it as necessarily a deterrent for the young person. [In detention,] they’re not able to get the supports that they need to address the issues which are driving the offending. Instead [incarceration is] just severing their positive connections [and] severing their access to education, connection with caseworkers or services that they’re engaging with at the moment.
“There’s this sentiment that diversion responses are the soft approach. Diversion and restorative responses like youth justice conferencing and those kinds of collaborative care approaches are not intended to be hard or soft on crime. There is a public misconception that they are the softer option, and people want to see penalty and justice when there has been a crime. This public narrative makes it quite tricky sometimes to get traction when we are talking about diversion. What diversion really offers is a pathway for a young person to learn about their behaviour, make amends and move forward in a pro-social way.”
Mieke said the team wanted to see early-intervention programs that worked alongside children, young people and families experiencing disadvantage, and ensuring that where possible, they could remain strong and together.
She said The Salvation Army also wanted to see intervention in schools, and a positive, proactive approach after a young person had committed an offence, which sought to keep them outside of the justice system infrastructure and remain within a supportive network. She also said that the disproportionate representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in the justice system was a function of the system, not a feature of that demographic.
“[Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People] are over-represented in out-of-home care systems [and] child protection responses, [and] we see over-policing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” Mieke said. “They are overrepresented in our custodial settings as well, due to system failures.”
A critical reform The Salvation Army and sector partners had been calling for was to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility across Australia to 14 years.
Mieke said young people were “the future”, and ensuring they are supported to thrive and transition into adulthood was crucial. Raising the minimum age, which currently stands at 10 in NSW, would acknowledge cognitive development and give young people a chance to thrive, she said.
“A young person isn’t the same as an adult. They don’t have the same cognitive skills, reasoning or understanding necessarily of repercussions. Every person deserves to feel safe in their community. But all justice, particularly youth justice, must be compassionate, holistic and evidence-based.”
Read the full submission here.
