Speakers
Workshop Session
This presentation explores the challenge of creating change in youth justice practice and administration. It specifically examines the Australian context, and the calls for change made by the 2018 Royal Commission into Youth Detention and Child Protection in the Northern Territory. The Royal Commission involved considerable research and consultation that provided a clear rationale and evidence base for change to a less institutional, and more humane and decentralised, model of youth justice. It was promised as a watershed moment both for the Northern Territory, but also other state jurisdictions across the country. However, rather than change, what was observed across Australian youth jurisdictions was a period of real and significant instability and unrest. This presentation documents this unrest and examines why, rather than being a catalyst for change, the Royal Commission led to a retreat and seeming regression in practice. To do this, it draws on research about youth justice staff, the psychology of young people within these facilities, and research that models how people and organisations respond to uncertainty. An argument is made for an alternative positive dismantling approach to creating change within youth justice systems that centres the key role of the relationships between young people and those that care for them.