The juvenile detention population in Australia
The AIHW's Juvenile detention population in Australia 2012 report is the second in an annual series that focuses on trends in the numbers and rates of young people in detention in Australia.
The report covers quarterly trends from June 2008 to June 2012 and was compiled using the AIHW's 2010–11 Juvenile Justice National Minimum Data Set, supplemented with additional data on the number of young people in detention at midnight at the end of each month between July 2011 and June 2012.
In Australia, youth justice (also known as juvenile justice) is the responsibility of the state and territory governments, and each has its own legislation, policies and practices. Young people who have committed or allegedly committed an offence may be supervised by state and territory youth justice agencies, either in the community or in detention.
Only a small proportion (14%) of young people under youth justice supervision were in detention on an average day in 2010–11. Legislation in all Australian jurisdictions is based on the principle that detention is a last resort, and should be used for the shortest appropriate amount of time.
Few young people are in detention in Australia, and numbers are stable.
There were 1,024 young people in detention on an average night in the June quarter of 2012, or about 1 in every 3,000 young people aged 10–17.
More than half (53%)of the young people in detention were Indigenous, and most (91%) were boys or young men. Just over half (52%) were unsentenced—that is, awaiting the outcome of their court matter or sentencing.
The numbers of young people in detention remained quite stable over the 4-year period to the June quarter 2012. Similarly, there was little change in the number and proportion of young people in detention who were unsentenced over the 4-year period.
Indigenous over-representation has increased, particularly in unsentenced detention.
Although Indigenous young people only make up about 5% of the Australian population, 53% of those in detention on an average night in the June quarter 2012 were Indigenous (544 young people). The rate of Indigenous young people aged 10–17 in detention during this period was 4.60 per 1,000 relevant population, compared with only 0.15 per 1,000 for non-Indigenous people.
This meant that Indigenous young people were 31 times as likely as non-Indigenous young people to be in detention on an average night, up from 27 times in the June quarter 2008.
The level of Indigenous over-representation in unsentenced detention increased over the 4-year period (from 24 to 31 times), but decreased slightly for sentenced detention (from 32 to 30 times).
Download Juvenile detention population in
Australia 2012 at <http://bit.ly/AUS170>.
Further information
Communications, Media and Marketing Unit
Phone: 02 6244 1032
Email: