Children in NSW Youth Justice Pay the Price When Government Polices Itself

Just a few weeks ago, a number of child welfare and social organisations launched a joint campaign calling for an independent Child Safety and Wellbeing Commission. The proposal for such a Commission emerged as a response to chronic structural flaws within the existing NSW child protection framework. Report after report, and inquiry after inquiry, have consistently demonstrated that the current system is failing, and the children in NSW deserve a robust protection framework that prioritises their safety. The push for this independent Commission, driven by organisations such as the Aboriginal Legal Service, the Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies, the NSW Council of Social Service, and the Justice and Equity Centre, represent a concerted effort to transition towards a child protection framework that emphasises transparency and community-supported accountability.

The current system

Under the existing system, accountability mechanisms are inadequate, largely due to the lack of independence in these mechanisms; the government currently holds not only immense powers to intervene in families, but also acts largely as its own evaluator with regards to the exercise of these powers. This inevitably leads to a conflict of interest.

Justice and Equity Centre chief executive Jonathon Hunyor stated that “when government holds both the power in the system and oversight of the system, child safety and family rights are at risk”, also emphasising the need for comprehensive and independent oversight mechanisms to ensure the protection of children in NSW.

Further, the insular nature of the current system means that vulnerable families and young people are often reluctant to utilise internal government complaints mechanisms due to a fear of repercussions. This means that however well-intentioned these internal mechanisms may be, if people do not feel safe to voice their concerns, then it is simply not good enough.

The proposed framework:

The proposal for an independent Child Safety and Wellbeing Commission aims to establish a trusted body dedicated to overseeing and setting standards for child protection services, to improve children’s safety while also reducing complexity and being more economically efficient.

Such a Commission would also provide a much-needed avenue for complaints for people interacting with the NSW child protection system; independent of the government agencies that possess removal powers, people interacting with the child protection system would feel more empowered to raise concerns, lodge formal complaints, and legally challenge bureaucratic decisions without fear.

What would this mean for children in detention?

With regards to youth detention, an independent Commission to oversee the child protection framework in NSW would have a notable impact on the ‘care-to-prison pipeline’, where a disproportionate number of youth in out-of-home care (OOHC) end up in youth detention due to inadequacies in dealing with trauma-driven behaviours, high instability, and systemic criminalisation. Particularly for First Nations youth, child removal from families into out-of-home care is not only highly traumatic, but disproportionate – Indigenous children are placed in OOHC at almost 10 times the rate of non-Indigenous children. Combined with the overwhelming percentages of Indigenous youth in juvenile detention, it is clear that the current system is deeply harmful for Indigenous children and communities. An independent Commission to oversee government intervention, designed and delivered in partnership with First Nations communities, would be a significant step towards the protection of Indigenous children in NSW.

While this Commission would be immensely valuable in reducing criminalisation and keeping children out of detention in NSW, it would be equally valuable for children in detention as well. An independent oversight Commission could provide a crucial avenue to report abuses occurring within juvenile detention centres. Children who experience solitary confinement, isolation, or other harmful practices often cannot seek help because reporting mechanisms are run internally, or government oversight is completely inadequate. An external Commission would provide a valuable opportunity for children in detention to report harm safely and without fear of repercussions.

No Child in Solitary joins the call for the implementation of an independent Child Safety and Wellbeing Commission that would better protect children in NSW, particularly in detention environments. Such a Commission would provide a valuable framework to ensure that the rights of children in detention are upheld.