The Mercury, 8 April 2025
This month the Tasmanian Parliament tabled a landmark 345-page final report from the Legislative Council’s Inquiry into Adult Imprisonment and Youth Detention.
It’s a confronting document that lays bare decades of dysfunction in Tasmania’s prison system and confirms what advocates, service providers, and many in the community already know: the way we’re using incarceration — especially for children — is costly, ineffective, and in many cases, harmful.
The findings follow the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings, where the Ashley Youth Detention Centre was singled out as a site of profound failure, but this new report also provides an important roadmap to a smarter justice system that supports the bold change in direction led by the state government.
The inquiry — first established in 2022 in response to several key developments including a commitment to close Ashley and introduce a new therapeutic model for youth justice— builds on 50 years of evidence highlighting the same core issue: a costly and broken system that prioritises punishment over rehabilitation, cycling people in and out of custody with little chance of breaking free.
Tasmania now has one of the highest rates of recidivism in the country. The Committee noted that despite youth crime rates falling in Tasmania and across Australia, an increasing number of Tasmanian children and young people are involved in the youth justice system and around two-thirds of those in youth detention are unsentenced.
What sets this latest report apart is its breadth of voices. Alongside politicians, academics and public servants, it draws powerfully on the lived experience of both adults and children who’ve been incarcerated, and the frontline workers supporting them. It shows where the blockages are—and what can be done about them.
It details decades of neglect where people sentenced to custody or held on remand have had little chance of rehabilitation, minimising their chance of breaking cycles of disadvantage and imprisonment.
As Fiona McLeod SC, President, Law Council of Australia said, “the best way to drive up crime rates is to expose people to prison, a learning environment for crime and reinforced criminal identity”.
The report also suggests short sentences, particularly those under six months, offer little to no opportunity for rehabilitation. People are warehoused and released without support. The Committee found no evidence that short sentences are effective and has recommended the Sentencing Advisory Council report to government on options for phasing them out in favour of community-based alternatives.
This is not about being soft on crime. It’s about being smart. A system that fails to rehabilitate is a system that fails to protect the community.
Tasmania’s sentencing options include diversion programs for people with mental illness or drug dependency, but these programs must be scaled up and resourced properly, as they are in other jurisdictions. The Committee examined alternative models interstate and overseas—including in South Australia and Norway—where reintegration is prioritised, and recidivism is much lower.
One of the most promising developments in recent years is the state government’s commitment to moving away from locking up children on remand, and instead adopting a therapeutic, evidence-based model of youth justice. This is the kind of leadership Australia needs—and it deserves cross-party backing.
If Tasmania follows through, it could reshape how Australia approaches youth justice in a way that puts young people, families, and communities at the centre.
Importantly, the Committee’s report was unified in backing this policy direction. On almost every issue, it recommended evidence-based, community-led alternatives to detention. These include early intervention, education and housing supports, and programs designed and delivered by Aboriginal organisations for Aboriginal young people. Across all points it recommended increased investment in those programs.
These recommendations are not only about fixing what happens inside our prisons, such as cultural awareness training and specialist alcohol or drug services. They’re about building systems around them that prevent crime in the first place—and support people to succeed when they leave prison.
Importantly, the report also highlights the role of newly established oversight bodies like the Custodial Inspector and the National Preventive Mechanism, which bring transparency and accountability to closed environments.
But oversight alone won’t fix what’s broken. We need bold reform.
If the goal of our approach to justice is safer communities, then we must accept that rehabilitation and reintegration must be at the heart of our justice system.
The Tasmanian Government’s willingness to chart a new course on youth justice is a rare moment of political courage. We should back it in. That means bipartisan support and long-term investment in what works to build safer communities.
We have this roadmap, now it’s time to use it.
Patrick Burton is the Tasmanian Campaign Coordinator for the Justice Reform Initiative.