Justice reinvestment recommendations

The youth detention review made 83 recommendations. These were sorted into work programs for implementation.

Justice reinvestment is based on the idea that solutions to offending can be found in the communities that offenders come from.

It believes that those communities are best placed to identify and put in place solutions that hold offenders accountable and reduce offending. Funds are redirected to support localised solutions.

Community members, businesses, government and the not-for-profit sector must work together to succeed.

Our objectives

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities will lead local responses to offending that result in fewer young people from their communities being in detention.

In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities justice reinvestment will fund:

• prevention
• early intervention
• diversion from the youth justice system.

The way forward

To achieve this we will:

• work with the Cherbourg community on a justice reinvestment trial
• build on our ability in Youth Justice to enable justice reinvestment initiatives.

Recommendations

Recommendation 9 (status: complete)

The Review recommends that consideration should be given to the implementation of justice reinvestment collaborations between existing community-based services and Youth Justice. (7.R7)

A Youth Justice-led project explored whether a justice reinvestment initiative could be established in Cherbourg.

Cherbourg Local Council endorsed a final report by the consultant.

The long-term implementation responsibility of this recommendation has been transferred to the Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships. Youth Justice will remain a stakeholder throughout the implementation.

Recommendation 11 (status: complete)

The Review recommends that the Tasmanian experience highlighted in the QNADA submission should be examined closely with a view to incorporating practices and concepts of social justice return in the Youth Justice funding framework. In particular, in relation to reintegration support for young people exiting youth detention. (7.R9)

We examined the work that took place in Tasmania and looked for learnings that could be used in Queensland. This included an analysis of tools that could:

• enable Youth Justice and service providers gain deeper insights into the impact on all their stakeholders
• learn what is and isn't working
• use this as input into strategy.

We particularly looked at re-integration support models and social return on this investment.

There have been changes in department investments around social justice returns and these were incorporated into the business case for the new youth detention build.