Off the back of the Northern Territory government reclassifying 13 offences—including "assaulting police" and driving stolen vehicles—as "serious offences" under the Youth Justice Regulations, we have to ask ourselves, 'what are we doing—as adults, as a nation—when we outsource our care of children to courts, cops, and cages?'.

In the Northern Territory, the Finocchiaro Government is making a dangerous move to bar children from diversion programs—cutting off one of the few pathways out of the criminal legal system. The amendments to the Youth Justice Regulations to classify 13 additional offences—including "assaulting police" and driving stolen vehicles—as "serious offences" with a default position of proceeding to charge, will result in children and young people being automatically excluded from diversion and forced into the court system.

Chief Minister and Police Minister Lia Finocchiaro has justified the changes as a response to NT Police, but community leaders see it for what it is: a direct attack on the right of children to heal and rebuild.

Alyawarre-Waka Waka woman and Grandmothers Against Removals member Junella Scott says: "Youth diversion is important because we need to work with families and communities. It is vitally important that there are alternative avenues for our children, such as community-based programs, instead of sending them straight to jail. The government should recognise that we are here to work with them to support our children at risk."

Rather than listening, the Chief Minister dismissed these community voices out of hand, stating: "The CLP government will not tolerate repeat offenders and their apologists putting community safety last."

Let's be clear: there is no safety in criminalising children. There is no safety in ignoring community. And there is no justice in branding concerned families as "apologists" simply for refusing to give up on their kids.

This move by the Country Liberal Party follows another disturbing policy—arming Housing and Bus Safety Officers with firearms under the new "Police Public Safety Officer" scheme. What message does that send to children? That their homes and buses are battlegrounds? That every uniformed adult is a threat?

When we respond to young people in need with guns instead of care, and with charges instead of choices, we are not protecting communities—we are abandoning them.

Across this country, we are witnessing a coordinated, punitive assault on children and young people—especially Aboriginal children and those pushed to the margins. Instead of investing in support, care, and community, governments are pouring resources into surveillance, police taskforces, and laws that criminalise kids for surviving the very conditions the state has created or refused to address.

In South Australia - despite having one of the lowest youth crime rates in the country - the government is proposing a "super task force" to tackle what police describe as an emerging "youth gang landscape." This will merge two highly racialised operations—Mandrake and Meld—into a more powerful force for the over-policing of Aboriginal and African-background children. Attorney General, Kyam Maher has confirmed youth crime in SA is among the lowest in the nation. So, what's the rationale here? It feels less like public safety and more like political theatre.

The SA Government's Young Offender Plan is being sold as a way to "prevent a future crime wave," but the evidence doesn't support that claim. In fact, it risks entrenching young people further in the system. Even when the government holds community roundtables, it doesn't listen to those who offer real, evidence-based solutions.

They cite stats like "20 young people are responsible for 11 per cent of Youth Court matters," while ignoring that those 20 children represent just 0.005 per cent of SA's under-18 population.

Are we seriously saying that, as a society, we can't find better ways to support 20 children in crisis than through mega-taskforces, expanded police powers, and control orders? That's not a policy problem—it's a failure of imagination and of compassion.

Meanwhile in Queensland, new laws introduced in 2024—and expanded in 2025—mean children can now be tried as adults. They face the same maximum, minimum, and mandatory penalties as adults. The legal distinction between children and adults is vanishing. This isn't justice. It's institutional child abuse.

Across all these states, the message is the same: punish first, ask questions never. Politicians are exploiting public fear, weaponising children for cheap political gain. They perpetuate a false narrative about "hardcore repeat offenders" and "criminal untouchables" while ignoring the truth: most of these children are survivors—of poverty, racism, violence, neglect, and a so-called child protection system that punishes trauma instead of healing it.

Let's not forget: for many of these children, the state is their legal parent. And yet instead of showing up with housing, healthcare, culture, education, and love, the state shows up with handcuffs.

We must reject the fantasy that more policing will fix anything. Policing is not neutral—it is rooted in control, surveillance, and punishment. It criminalises race, trauma, disability, neurodivergence, poverty, and any child who refuses to conform to systems never built to protect them.

When a child is met with police instead of care, we tell them they are a problem to be corrected; not a person to be loved.

We cannot keep warehousing children in cages because they don't meet our expectations of "respectability" or "obedience." We cannot criminalise our way to correction.

Children belong in classrooms, on Country, and in community. They deserve rest, safety, culture, and a future. They deserve to be seen as children—not threats.

So, we must ask:

Who are we, if our first instinct is to lock up children?

What kind of adults have we become if we see a child in pain and respond with uniforms, cages, and criminal charges?

This moment demands more than despair—it demands courage and imagination. Because if we can't figure out how to care for 20 vulnerable kids without turning them into enemies of the state, then the failure isn't theirs. It's ours.

And it's time we did better.

Tabitha Lean is a First Nations prisoner activist and member of the National Network of Incarcerated & Formerly Incarcerated Women & Girls

Debbie Kilroy is CEO of Sisters Inside and founding member of the National Network of Incarcerated & Formerly Incarcerated Women & Girls