Should further custodial beds be added to the Senior Youth Training System?
There is deep and widespread doubt about the basis for believing that additional custodial beds are needed in the Senior Youth Training Centre system. Those who know and work with these young people call for a “stocktake” of existing community based programs and resources for this age group and improvements to them, before moving to build a new facility. In the course of this debate, there has been no challenge to the obvious policy validity of such an approach and no evidence or data put forward by the Minister to justify the contrary. The Minister’s position is ironic. Victoria’s juvenile justice measures for 10 to 16 year olds have been the subject of praise. But the resources and strategies committed to diversion and community supervision programs for 10 to 16 year old young offenders are not matched for 17 to 20 year olds. It is poor resource and social policy to build new beds before determining whether, and if so how, existing as well as future demand could be reduced by greater
