In this COVID-19 update, we share a video update from our CEO Julie Edwards. Julie highlights some new initiatives that have recently received funding - the Brosnan Learning Centre and the Centre for Place Based Research.

New #WorthASecondChance campaign video

Around 600 children aged 10-13 are arrested, charged and locked up in detention in Australia every year. These children have often experienced significant abuse and trauma, and have disconnected from school, family and community. More than three quarters of children aged 10-13yo in detention in Australia are Aboriginal.

The impacts of colonisation, racism and dispossession continue to be felt by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities, and the over-representation of Aboriginal children in the justice system must be understood as a result of this. Australia continues to lock these children up and it has to stop.

Australia is behind the rest of the world where the most common age of legal responsibility is 14. These children need an appropriate response that will help them understand the impact of their actions and support them to address the challenges in their lives.

This year along with many other organisations we are fighting to #RaiseTheAge of legal responsibility from 10 to 14. If you haven’t already, please consider signing your name to our campaign to show your support and stay up to date with the issues affecting young people.

Reconciliation Week: In This Together

Reconciliation Week offers us the opportunity to come to terms with past actions and develop a deep understanding of what it truly means to be “In This Together”, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ.

Second medically supervised injecting room will save lives for Victorians struggling with addiction

“Medically supervised injecting rooms are about saving lives and helping people to heal. Any program that keeps people safer, and helps them get well, is to be commended.”

We welcome Victoria’s second medically supervised injecting room, announced on Friday 5 June by the Victorian Government. 

World Environment Day

For World Environment Day, ANDY HAMILTON SJ writes that the COVID–19 pandemic offers a valuable opportunity to pause and reconsider our relationship with our environment and the communities it sustains.

Youth justice reforms would improve outcomes for children who have experienced trauma

A new report by the Sentencing Advisory Council explores the impact of trauma in childhood offending and canvasses possible reforms that would lead to better outcomes for children, their families and the broader community.

It also adds to the evidence that supports raising of the age of legal responsibility from 10 to 14 years.

#WorthASecondChance Community Check-In: What Would the Ideal Justice System Look Like?

Dr Diana Johns is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Melbourne, where she teaches about prisons, young people and the justice system, and doing research in criminal justice settings. In recent research, Diana has explored young people’s prolific offending in Wales, Children’s Court-based youth diversion, and the effects of criminalising narratives on South Sudanese young people in Victoria. 

In this Community check-in, Diana discusses how she came to pursue a career in Criminology and what the biggest misconception most people have about the justice system is.

Our submission to a Law Reform Commission Inquiry in 2018, in which we called the over-incarceration of First Nations people ‘a national disgrace’, was referenced by news.com.au in a feature article about the need for Indigenous incarceration rates to be part of the Closing the Gap strategy. Read it here.

Executive Director of The Men’s Project, Matt Tyler, spoke to ABC Radio Melbourne about male mental health and suicide rates, and some of the work his team is doing alongside boys and men to reduce violence including violence against women. Listen here.

The Geelong Advertiser covered a new project we are involved in, connecting students at St Ignatius College Geelong with Alma nuns in Timor-Leste, via Zoom, to help the sisters improve their English skills. Read more here.

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