At present the tornado that has raged in youth justice for some months 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 prison 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.
It is why Jesuit Social Services has invited Vincent Schiraldi, a researcher and reformer in Washington and New York, to speak at its National Justice Symposium next week to look at worldwide trends and how we can apply lessons learned to our very different Australian context. A broader view offers time to take stock and to ask what matters in this area.
The recent disturbances have made clear that in our response to children who act violently or anti-socially two things matter. One is to ensure the community feels their lives and homes are safe.
Second we need to recognise that the future of our society rests in our children's hands. In this malleable stage of their lives we must help them to connect with society and to respect themselves and others. Otherwise our future harvest will be crime with all its costs in damage to persons and unprofitable diversion of public resources.
Our challenge as a society is to hold these two imperatives together: to ensure the safety of the community and to care for alienated children. In times of public panic and heated controversy, our response must respect what we know about both the prevention of crime and the consequences of different ways of treating children.
We need to strengthen the families and communities where young people who are drawn to criminal behaviour come from, and to help them connect with society through education, employment, sport and other community activities.
We also need to strengthen the resources of intergenerational disadvantaged families and neighbourhoods by providing child care, mentoring and programs for children whose education and employment experience have been of failure. We need to ensure parents and adults in those communities have real employment options and ways to participate actively in their communities.
"When children's connections with the community are broken, for ill more than for good, they are deprived of meaningful engagement with the world."
As in other areas