Just Reinvest NSW has slammed the Premier Chris Minns' assertions that new youth bail laws have been successful in making communities safer.
In the wake of new data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research showing the number of young Aboriginal people in custody increased almost 22 per cent in the past year as new youth bail laws have taken effect, Just Reinvest chief executive Geoff Scott said the Premier's decision to extend the laws for another three years "is extremely disappointing and will only serve to further the incarceration of young Aboriginal people".
The spike in the number of young people incarcerated has come while the crime rate has remained steady over the same period, and is driven by an increasing number of children and young people being denied bail, contravening a recommendation from the 1991 Royal Commission into Indigenous Deaths in Custody.
"By his own words Mr Minns cannot claim that this extension of the bail laws will keep the community safer while at the same time saying they're 'investing in efforts to reduce youth crime and minimise young peoples' long-term contact with the criminal justice system'. More incarceration does not reduce crime, rather evidence suggests that it perpetuates a cycle of crime and incarceration," Mr Scott said.
Last year another Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research study on detention of 10–13-year-olds in 2023, revealed 60 per cent of children experiencing detention are Aboriginal, and 82 per cent of them had been identified in a child protection report as at risk of significant harm (ROSH). 60 per cent had received 10 or more ROSH reports. One in four of them had been in Out of Home Care.
"What we need are more therapeutic responses and a thorough investigation into the root causes of crime and how this can be addressed at the source - the parents and the police - with more community-led and place-based responses," Mr Scott said.
Just Reinvest noted that in NSW, youth incarceration costs $2,814 per child, per day, according to 2023-24 Productivity Commission data, with the state spending over $223 million to imprison children and young people.
