Submission: Youth Justice and Child Wellbeing Reform across Australia About

It is crucial to recognise that much of the contact of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth with the CJS arises because of differences in treatment of First Nations and non-Indigenous persons under the system, rather than because of differences in behaviour.17 While it is important to pay attention to and, where possible, mitigate individual risk factors for youth involved in c. [...] What needs to be changed so that youth justice and related systems protect the rights and wellbeing of children and young people?What are the barriers to change, and how can these be overcome? ANTAR outlines below four primary recommendations to be taken into consideration when examining how youth justice and child protection systems can better protect the rights and wellbeing of children and youn. [...] The average minimum age of criminal responsibility in the European Union is 14 years where “there are no negative consequences to be seen in terms of crime rates”.57 Similarly, in some 86 countries surveyed worldwide the median age was 14 years.58 This is based on general principles of best interests of the child and participation of the child enshrined in the UNCRC.59 The low MACR in Australia ha. [...] Commit to identifying and eliminating institutional racism By far the greatest barrier to change in the protection of the rights and wellbeing of young people in youth justice and related systems is what underpins the broader settler colonial system and its carceral logics: pervasive structural racism. [...] Carceral logics refer to the variety of ways our bodies, minds, and actions have been shaped by the idea and practices of imprisonment.72 By contrast, decarceration can be understood as "a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society".73 It is ANTAR’s view that the overrepresentation.