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Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system (2nd inquiry)

Submission Date: 23 December 2025

The Law Council of Australia provided a submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee to comment further on Australia’s youth justice system and the incarceration of children and young people around the country.

This submission should be read in conjunction with our submission to the earlier instance of this inquiry in the 47th Parliament, submitted in October 2024 (2024 submission),1 as well as the Law Council's supplementary submission following our appearance before that inquiry in February 2025.2 Those submissions addressed the first term of reference for the present inquiry.

As stated in our 2024 submission, it is important to acknowledge that children can and do engage in behaviour that can have significant and harmful effects on their victims—and that our society needs to develop effective policy responses to such behaviour and support victims. However, the Law Council also recognises that children are not adults and that approaches to criminal justice designed for adults are inappropriate to address alleged breaches of the law by children.

The Law Council observes in relation to youth justice and incarceration around the country that jurisdictions are turning to increasingly punitive measures to combat perceived3 youth crime crises. These measures are inconsistent with the evidence about approaches that really work and are sustainable, and incur unacceptable costs both in terms of funding and impact on vulnerable children’s lives.

According to the Productivity Commission, the cost of detaining one child in Australia has reached $3,320 per day. This adds up to more than $1 million per child annually, for a collective total of more than $1 billion per year.4 If this funding were redirected to diversion and support services administered by specialists from across relevant sectors (including justice, health and welfare), it could make a transformative difference in these children’s lives. It could also result in a lasting improvement in community safety, which research shows will not be achieved by taking a punitive approach. By contrast, community-based supervision costs on average $381 per child, per day.5

It is also important to note that the burden of these punitive approaches does not fall evenly across the population. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, First Nations children and young people made up three in five (60%) of all those in detention on an average night in the June quarter 2025, beginning at age 10.6 They were 21 times as likely to be in detention as their non-Indigenous peers.7 Other groups of young people, such as those living with disability, are also significantly overrepresented, and have been for many years.8 Addressing the causes of this overrepresentation should be among the highest priorities for all governments across the nation, including through the National Closing the Gap Agreement.

The legal profession is extremely concerned by these trends. That concern prompted the Law Council to publish a Policy Statement on Child Justice Reform in March 2025, which we commend to the Committee and all relevant policy- and decision-makers.9

As a nation, we must turn towards a preventive and protective approach to child justice in line with Australia’s international human rights obligations and the best available research, for the sake not only of children who might break the law, but also potential victims, their families and the broader community.

The Law Council encourages national leadership by the Australian Government in this area, not only to promote evidence-based approaches to policy making and to fund services that address underlying issues behind youth offending, but also to defend the human rights and common law rights of children involved (or likely to become involved) with the criminal justice system. The Law Council makes nine recommendations to this end, which should be considered complementary to those made in our 2024 submission and supplementary submission. They also complement recommendations made by a long list of previous inquiries relevant to child justice around the country.10

This submission is set out in two parts. Part I outlines developments relevant to the first term of reference since our appearance before the previous inquiry in February 2025. Part II addresses the second term of reference with respect to evidence of effective alternatives to detention of children.

Although the focus of this submission is on legal and policy developments from a federal and national perspective, the Law Council encourages the Committee to engage and seek input from young people with lived experience in the justice system in this inquiry. Their voices are an essential factor to understand the effect of various youth justice interventions and how the child justice system should be improved.11

First Nations readers should be aware that this submission discusses names and circumstances of people who have died. This submission also contains potentially distressing details of occurrences in detention, including incidents of self-harm.

1 Law Council of Australia, Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system (Submission 195, 22 October 2024).
2 Law Council, Supplementary Submission: Australia’s Youth Justice and Incarceration System (14 February 2025).
3 Alex Simpson, “Is Australia in a youth crime crisis? Here’s what the numbers say”, The Conversation, 1 December 2025; also Susan Baidawi, “Youth crime in Australia: Rhetoric vs reality” (2025) 96(3) Australian Quarterly 31-39.
4 Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2025, Part F, Youth Justice, 17. See also Justice Reform Initiative, Australia now spends $1 billion a year locking up children—it’s time for a smarter approach, (Media Release, 31 January 2025).
5 Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2025 (Report, 30 January 2025), Part F, table 17A.21.
6 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), Youth detention population in Australia 2025: First Nations (Last updated 10 December 2025).
7 Ibid.
8 See eg Patrick McGee et al, Report of the National Forum on Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of People with Disability in Detention (May 2024), 2-3.
9 Law Council, Policy Statement on Child Justice Reform (March 2025).
10 See Law Council, 2024 submission, Executive Summary (footnote 5).
11 See further eg Lisa Ewenson, “Lived experiences of youth justice detention in Australia: reframing the institution in a decarcerated state” (2024) 30(1) Australian Journal of Human Rights 41.

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