NSW Government Pays $713,940 Per Year To Hold A Single Child In Youth Detention

The state government has revealed during a budget estimates hearing that it costs taxpayers $713,940 annually to imprison a child in youth detention in New South Wales.

Youth Justice, the government department responsible for incarcerating juvenile offenders in NSW, said that the cost of housing a single child or teenager in youth detention had risen to $1965 per day.

The department also shared that while the number of total youth incarcerated in NSW had reduced slightly, the total figure of First Nations children imprisoned in the state had risen from 36 percent to 51 percent, with Youth Justice attributing the increase to recent bail refusals.

Currently, the criminal age of responsibility applies to children as young as 10 years old in NSW, with the government confirming that the youngest child currently residing in youth detention is only eleven.

Greens spokesperson for First Nation’s justice, Sue Higginson, called on the government to take urgent action to remove children under the age of 14 from state detention facilities.

“The department’s admission today that there is a child of just 11 years of age behind bars is very sobering. It’s unthinkable that the NSW Government finds it acceptable to hold a child in year six criminally responsible in the same way as an adult,” said Higginson in a statement. “This huge expense to taxpayers to keep these young people locked up could be much better spent on developing and expanding diversionary and wrap-around programs that prevent children from coming in contact with the justice system in the first place.”

Of the 205 young people incarcerated in youth detention centres across NSW, approximately nine are under 14 years of age. Shockingly, during budget estimates on Tuesday, the government was also unable to clarify how many of those under the age of 14 in NSW detention centres identified as First Nations.

Before forming government this year, federal Labor had considered a push to raise the age of criminal responsibility, with the current Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney telling reporters that the current minimum age of 10 was “is far too young”.

A social media campaign went viral earlier this year urging people to share old photos of themselves to protest Australia’s low age of criminal responsibility.

Members of the National Justice Project team at 13 years old. Let’s be clear we believe 13 is too young for kids to be sent to prison. They belong in school, not in prisons. It’s time for Australia to #RaiseTheAge to at least 14. #RaiseTheAge #MeAt13 pic.twitter.com/H7AqKhTwrG

— Nat. Justice Project (@NJP_Au) January 30, 2022

Photo Credit: Getty Images/Ekaterina Savyolova