Locking up young offenders doesn’t make communities safer – an interview with Shona Reid

Australia’s approach to youth crime risks pulling more disadvantaged children into the justice system and failing to reduce reoffending, according to South Australia’s Guardian for Children and Young People, Shona Reid.

Speaking ahead of the Children and Young People at Risk Summit, Reid emphasised that community safety is a legitimate concern but cautioned against over-reliance on incarceration.

“We hear media reports of youth crime and, intuitively, some people want punishment for offenders, to correct their behaviour, and put them on the right path,” Reid said.

“In reality, we know incarceration has the opposite effect. In fact, the earlier children go into detention, the more likely their life trajectory into adult offending.

“Yes, community safety matters, but locking up children doesn’t make communities safer.”

Rehabilitation shortfalls

Shona noted that youth detention rarely delivers the kind of rehabilitation the community assumes.

“Many young offenders have complex needs layered with vulnerabilities and these needs don’t stop at the door. Our response needs to be therapeutic, but that’s not always possible or effective in a custodial environment.

“Our community expects that youth detention will be different to adult facilities and have all these wonderful rehabilitation programmes that will fix everything, and children will learn from their mistakes and come out on a better path. But here in South Australia, these programmes do not operate to the standard our community thinks they do.”

The challenge is compounded by the system’s design. With remand and sentenced detention facilities operating together, many children are held for short periods without meaningful access to programmes.

“The way we operate youth detention facilities – cycling children in and out – does not consider their full rehabilitation needs, and we don’t invest in community-based interventions that would interrupt cycles of offending.”

Re-thinking what works

Shona says youth detention should also be less punitive, instead centred on strengthening relationships and repairing disrupted attachments.

“Concepts like ‘you do the crime, you do the time’ don’t make sense to people with disordered attachments. What does work is a lot of one-on-one relational work. This, of course, takes effort and time, but do you know what it doesn’t take? It doesn’t take $1.13 million a year, which is what it costs to have a child in youth detention.”

A young person helped reinforce Shona’s beliefs around attachment work.

“A 16-year-old boy stopped me in my tracks when he said, ‘I’m happy to take responsibility for what I’ve done, but who’s going to take responsibility for what they did to me, from the day I was born?’

“It was his way of saying, why should he, as a minor, be shouldering all this responsibility for his character when he has never received adequate parental guidance?

“I thought that was profound from a boy of his age, and I didn’t actually have a response for him.”

Media narratives and public perceptions

Shona is also concerned about how young people are portrayed in public debate. She believes negative commentary and sensationalised reporting can distort policy responses.

“In South Australia, we have the second lowest youth crime rate in the country, yet a narrative is being put out that we need to crack down on repeat offending and serious youth crime. Because of this, we are passing legislation that will capture more children of colour, more children with disabilities, and more children who live in care without the parental guidance that they deserve,” she said.

“We’ve also seen hysteria around African “gangs” that has vilified entire communities just based on a handful of cases. We’re talking about a minority of children who were involved in youth crime at the time, and it caused mass hysteria. Children of African descent were quite fearful of their place in society.”

This type of reporting also has a detrimental impact on people who are leaving youth detention, entrenching stigma and reducing opportunities for rehabilitation, she warns.

“They’re confronted with media narratives about them which aren’t necessarily truthful, or which don’t understand their situation in full, and they grow to think that the world really hates them.

“You never know whether it is the chicken or the egg, but we do see this cycle continually feeding itself. Ultimately, what we get is hurt people all the way around – our community gets hurt and our children get hurt.”

Through her advocacy and circle of influence, Shona is seeking to shift this narrative and improve the way communities interact with children.

“We need to make sure that the way children and young people are seen and spoken about is respectful of their rights and dignity and supports them to be the people they want to be, when they grow up.

“To achieve this, we should be asking: who is directing the narrative around these children, and is it what we want? If it’s not what we want, how do we reclaim that narrative? How do we use our circle of influence to better direct a conversation about vulnerable children and young people?”

Further insight

Shona will share further insights at the Children and Young People at Risk Summit, where she will join sector leaders, policymakers, and practitioners to examine how systems can better support vulnerable children and reduce pathways into offending.

Learn more and register your tickets here.

About Shona Reid

Eastern Arrernte woman, Shona Reid, is South Australia’s Guardian for Children and Young People and Training Centre Visitor, appointed to promote and advocate for the rights of children and young people in care and youth detention. Shona has devoted her knowledge, experience, professional and personal life to the advancement and rights of Aboriginal children, young people, families and communities.

For nearly 20 years, Shona has worked across the child protection, young offending and the out-of-home care sector, predominately in regional and remote areas, including the Anangu (arn-ahng-oo) Pitjantjatjara (pigeon-jarrah) Yankunytjatjara (young-kun-jarrah).

In early 2020 she was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award for service to Aboriginal Children, Young People, Families and Communities from Flinders University.