Justice Reform Initiative Media Release, 2 July 2026
Western Australia is at a crossroads on youth justice and has an opportunity to follow the path taken by some of the world's most successful reform jurisdictions, according to three international experts who have spent the past week in Australia sharing lessons from systems that dramatically reduced youth imprisonment while improving community safety.
As the WA Government doubles down on building more detention infrastructure, the international delegation visited Banksia Hill Detention Centre this week before meeting with Western Australian community leaders at a breakfast event on Thursday. The WA Cook Labor Government declined an invitation to meet with them.
The experts — who have overseen transformational youth justice reform in New York, Spain and Hawai'i — come from jurisdictions that once faced the same entrenched challenges as WA, including overcrowded detention centres, high reoffending rates, and the overrepresentation of Indigenous children. Each has been part of dramatic, evidence-based change through strong community and justice partnerships, genuine investment in prevention, diversion, and therapeutic responses alongside strong political leadership.
Their visit to WA follows appearances at the national Reintegration Puzzle Conference in Adelaide, and evidence given to both the NSW Parliamentary Select Committee on Youth Justice and the Federal Senate Inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system.
Rather than relying on more detention, the international experts pointed to approaches centred on government and community working together; recognition of the importance of government agencies and the judiciary being connected; early intervention, therapeutic care, community-based responses and strong partnerships with First Nations communities and community sector partners.
None of these jurisdictions believed this scale of change was possible when they began. Each faced entrenched challenges, political pressure and public concern about crime. Each chose to work across government and with community to build a system that reduced incarceration while improving community safety.
· New York State has reduced the number of children in prison by 82% over two decades. In New York City, fewer than 100 children are now placed from Family Court into any kind of secure facility, compared to 1,300 twenty years ago.
· Spain’s Diagrama model has lowered recidivism rates to around 15%, compared to historical levels of around 85%, through facilities staffed by social educators rather than security officers.
· Hawai’i has closed 80% of its youth detention centres, reduced youth crime overall by 86%, and by 2022 had zero girls incarcerated for the first time since 1961 — through a public health model built on culturally grounded prevention and community support.
The Justice Reform Initiative, which brought the global experts to Australia, said the situation in WA reflected a national pattern of governments responding to concern about crime with more detention, despite evidence showing there are more effective ways to improve community safety.
“Western Australia is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on more detention infrastructure while the evidence and the people who have lived it in practice are telling us there is a better way,” JRI Executive Director Dr Mindy Sotiri said.
“The experts have been where WA is now. They know what it takes to turn a system around. WA has strong community engagement, it has a skilled community sector, it has First Nations expertise. What it needs is the political leadership to take a different approach.”
The visit comes as Western Australia continues to invest heavily in custodial responses, including a new $100 million maximum-security youth detention facility, despite evidence showing detention is expensive, increases the likelihood of future offending and disproportionately impacts Aboriginal children.
The international delegation's visit provided an opportunity to discuss practical reforms that have transformed youth justice overseas.
Justice Reform Initiative Chair Robert Tickner AO urged governments to adopt international best practice to reduce crime and address the underlying issues bringing children into contact with the criminal justice system.
"These international experts have come from places that once faced many of the same challenges we see in Western Australia today, but had the courage to change course,” Mr Tickner said.
"They have shown that you can reduce the number of children behind bars, reduce reoffending and improve community safety at the same time.”
“It was a missed opportunity for the WA Government to hear directly from people who have successfully delivered the kind of reforms governments around Australia are searching for."
International experts visiting WA:
• Vincent Schiraldi (USA) – Former New York City Correction Commissioner, instrumental in policies that led to an 85% reduction in youth incarceration.
• David McGuire (Spain) – Senior leader at Fundación Diagrama, which delivers rehabilitation programs with significantly lower recidivism outcomes.
• Matelina Aulava (Hawaiʻi) – Director of Hawaiʻi’s Office of Youth Services, driving a shift to culturally grounded prevention and public health-informed approaches to youth justice.
Media contact: Amy Price, 0437 027 156
The Initiative respectfully acknowledges and supports the current and longstanding efforts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to reduce the numbers of Indigenous people incarcerated in Australia and, importantly, the leadership role which Indigenous-led organisations continue to play on this issue. We also acknowledge the work of many other individuals and organisations seeking change, such as those focused on the rate of imprisonment for women, people with mental health issues, people with disability and others.
Further background:
New York City: The Close to Home Act realigned New York’s youth justice system with research and best practices, prioritising investments in programs and resources within and around the neighbourhoods in which young people live. By 2016, New York City no longer sent any young people from its Family Courts to state-operated prisons. Today fewer than 100 children and young people are placed from Family Court into any kind of residential facility – and most of these go to smaller more home-like settings.
Spain: Diagrama is an international non-profit organisation that has pioneered an alternative to prison for children. Diagrama operates over 35 custodial centres across Spain for young people aged 14 to 23 who are remanded or sentenced to custody, typically for serious and persistent violence-related offences. The Diagrama model has demonstrated significantly reduced rates of recidivism, with operational costs comparable to or lower than those of other providers. The model has also been implemented across France and the United Kingdom. Diagrama’s centres are home-like, safe, and structured around education and reintegration. The staffing model is fundamentally different from conventional youth detention: degree-qualified social educators form warm, consistent, parent-like relationships with young people, while a multi-disciplinary professional team (psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, occupational therapists, reintegration workers) provides assessments, case planning, and community reintegration programs. Security staff play a minimal and passive role.
Hawai’i: Reforms in Hawai’i particularly focused on providing adequate community-led and culturally modelled alternatives at the point of police interaction to divert children away from the system. The reforms reduced court referrals, improved probation for justice-involved young people, and engaged with community-based programs centred around community-based support. Hawai’i has reduced the number of children in prison by 82% and reduced youth crime overall by 86%. By 2022, Hawaiʻi announced that there were zero girls incarcerated for the first time since 1961.
Scotland: Scotland reduced the use of custody for children through a preventative Whole System Approach (WSA), early intervention, and legislative reforms like the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024, which legally defines all under-18s as children and prevents them from being remanded or sentenced to Young Offenders Institutions. These changes helped achieve a 97% reduction in 16 and 17-year-olds being sentenced to custody between 2008 and 2022. NOTE: While Victoria has adopted a few elements of the ‘Scottish model’ by creating a Violence Reduction Model, so far no Australian government has committed to the breadth of reform similar to those that are achieving positive outcomes in Scotland.