SUBMISSION ANROWS Submission: Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system
On 28 October 2025, the Senate referred an inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 31 March 2026.
On 2 March 2026, the Senate agreed to extend the inquiry reporting date to 30 June 2026.
ANROWS welcomes the renewed inquiry and encourages the Committee to strengthen its response by examining the connections between domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV), youth justice, and incarceration, and by applying evidence-informed best practice in Australia.
The multiple and complex intersections between DFSV and youth justice result in high rates of young victim-survivors in the system and the harmful impacts of incarceration on their safety and healing.
Growing evidence highlights the unique physical, developmental, social and emotional impacts of DFSV on children and young people. The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032 explicitly includes them as victim-survivors in their own right. The Australian Government has recently committed to expanding child-specific recovery services.
This recognition also supports alignment and integration across key policies such as Safe and Supported: The National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2021–2031 and the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
We would welcome the opportunity to work with the Committee to contribute and translate evidence to further strengthen the response.
Recommendation 1: Recognise the links between DFSV and youth justice and implement national standards that align with the National Plan, Safe & Supported and the National Agreement.
Supporting actions:
- Prioritise early intervention and healing responses that respond to children and young people’s needs as victim-survivors and as people using, or at risk of using, violence.
- Support children and young people with lived experience of DFSV and youth justice to contribute to meaningful policy and practice solutions.
- Make trauma and DFSV-informed practice a minimum national standard in all youth justice responses, including those related to adolescent violence in the home (AVITH), young people’s use of intimate partner violence and harmful sexual behaviours and sexual violence.
- Require routine, developmentally appropriate assessments of children and young people’s experiences of trauma and adversity (including experiences of DFSV) on entry to the youth justice system, and at all other key decision points.
- Incorporate developmentally appropriate trauma and DFSV-informed therapeutic intervention and ongoing assessment across the youth justice system, including on exiting the system.
Recommendation 2: Require all youth justice strategies to demonstrate how they will reduce over-incarceration of First Nations young people by investing in community-designed diversion and healing.
Supporting actions:
- Embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership at all levels of policy, commissioning and program design, in line with self-determination.
- Fund and scale Aboriginal community-controlled, healing-oriented, non-carceral programs for young people using or experiencing violence.
- Adopt Healing our children and young people as a guiding framework for reforms affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, ensuring youth justice strategies are aligned with local healing strategies and community governance.
Download the full submission to explore the evidence and recommendations in detail.
Suggested citation
Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety. (2025) Re: Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system [Submission no. 4]. ANROWS.