Meet the Solutionists, with Mark Scott

When Professor Jioji Ravulo speaks at conferences overseas, he knows one piece of information about his work will shock just about everyone. He tells them that in some parts of Australia, children as young as 10 years old can be charged as adults for particular crimes. 

As predicted, jaws drop. 

Meanwhile, some politicians insist that Australia needs to be even tougher on youth crime, despite the evidence Jioji and his peers have been seeing for years. Jioji says the punitive approach we currently use in Australia doesn’t just fail to ensure public safety, it actually hurts children. Jioji advocates for a youth justice model that instead looks at the whole context of a young person who’s committed a crime, and prioritises rehabilitation. 

Mark Scott  00:01

This podcast is recorded at the University of Sydney's Camperdown campus on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. They've been discovering and sharing knowledge here for 10s of 1000s of years. I pay my respects to elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Taleigha  00:25 
 

My name's Taleigha Glover, I'm 23. My mob's Biripi and my dad's family's from Taree Kempsey. My childhood was chaotic, bit sad at times. When I was in the foster care system, I didn't feel like the adults around me understood me. From the age of 13 to 21 I've had heaps of involvement with the law. I've had run ins with the police. I remember the first time I was in trouble with the law. It was with a missing person, so I wasn't really like in trouble, but I was kind of treated like I was in trouble. When I was young, being treated like a criminal really affected the way that I seen myself and treated others. It set me on a bit of a bad path. 

Mark Scott  01:43

Why are we so obsessed with being tough on crime? The phrase suggests resolve, strength, moral seriousness. But does toughness actually work, and does it work for children? In Australia, children as young as 10 can face adult sentences for serious crimes. That age limit ranges across the country, but it's on the lower end internationally. The United Nations recommends raising the age in all countries to at least 14. What if it's time to stop trying to be tougher on crime, and start trying to be smarter? And what would a more holistic, solutions-focused approach to youth justice look like in Australia? This is The Solutionists, and I'm Mark Scott. Joining me with some answers is Jioji Ravulo, Professor and Chair of Social Work and Policy Studies in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. Jioji, earlier in your career, you interacted with the youth justice system directly when you first became a social worker. How did the reality of the job match up to your expectations?

Jioji Ravulo  02:56

The reality of the job really did create a bit of a tension in my mind. Originally, I thought that such young people should be treated at an arm's length. They were always seen as the rejects in society, hence why they were offenders or locked up. But when I started to work in this space, I started to realise that they're just children and young people that need to be understood for the contexts in which they come from.

Mark Scott  03:27

And so what did you learn about Australia's justice system by working as a social worker?

Jioji Ravulo  03:32

The justice system in Australia is very much focused on the punitive approach to crime. You do the crime, you do the time. We focus on the crime itself, rather than the person that has been involved in the criminal behaviour. So we fail then to see the contexts and the reasons why someone may be involved in the crime. I'm not saying that we're justifying criminal behaviour. What I'm saying is that we need to understand the bigger picture as to why someone has ended up in this space and place, and how we can potentially create sustainable strategies and solutions to counteract the reasons why they've come into this space and place in the first place.

Mark Scott  04:22

So let's look at the data in Australia today. What is the extent of the problem? What's the rate of young offenders in Australia now?

Jioji Ravulo  04:32

So we are in areas getting better in regards to creating preventative measures and also diversionary measures in different states and territories in different jurisdictions. However, we're still seeing a large over representation of First Nations, young people involved in the justice system. Despite being 4% of the population, over 50% of young people incarcerated in different jurisdictions across the country are First Nations. Similarly, we're seeing that with Pacific young people, where less than 2% of the population, yet again, 30 to 40, 50% of those incarcerated, especially in metropolitan areas. Same sort of thing with people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, people that have experienced poverty, that they're highly overrepresented in the Justice space. So this goes back to the point of, what are we doing to understand the context in which people exist, and what are the social systems that are around them that are not necessarily responding well?

Mark Scott  05:32

And one of the signs we'd have about the system not working well goes to reoffending data. What do we see about young people returning again and again and again to the youth justice system?

Jioji Ravulo  05:46

Yeah, so we're seeing that if young people are not provided with the support to either reintegrate back into their communities after they spent time in custody after a non-parole period, then there is a higher chance of them reoffending. If we're not also dealing with the significant social and welfare needs that they might have, same sort of thing, there is a high chance of them reoffending. So this goes back to the point around if we are responding well through the education system and the welfare and health system, alongside the legal system, this provides support for them to not re-offend, and this is the key point. It's about being able to respond to those social and welfare needs well, to try and deter recidivist offending behaviour.

Mark Scott  06:30

And is that fundamentally different for young people? Do you think we need to think about a justice system that any society would have, but really have a totally different lens with which we look at a youth justice system and dealing with children or young adults?

Jioji Ravulo  06:46

One of the interesting facts that is a reality for most jurisdictions in Australia is that you can be arrested from the age of 10, 10! And a lot of time, this blows people's minds, this idea that you can be arrested from that age. I use that example to highlight that they're still children, they're still young people with development in different areas, including their brain, and the way in which they understand the world around them. So yes, we do need to create a justice system that is responsive to children, young people. However, it's all interconnected. When I studied social work, I did my last placement at Long Bay jail, and it was through my last placement as a social worker that I realised that I wanted to work with young people involved in the criminal justice system, rather than adults. Why? Because if we can do some early intervention prevention and create programs that stop young people from developing anti-social behaviour and or recidivist offending behaviour before they become adults, happy days. And so I think that's where we also need to understand that creating tailored responses to children, young people, is so important.

Mark Scott  07:54

And as part of that tailored response that keeps them out of detention, what do we know about the risks of detention for young people? Certainly, you know when they're in there, but then what happens to them subsequently?

Jioji Ravulo  08:08

It's a mixed bag. So the idea of putting them into carceral spaces has its pros and cons. It has provided structure, and it does provide them with opportunities to access support, to help them to potentially move beyond their circumstances. But if we're not creating environments outside of custody that are conducive to their wellbeing in a safe and sustainable way, then we're just perpetuating the cycle.

Mark Scott  08:37

Does that mean you're as concerned about what happens to the young person the day they leave custody, than you are as concerned about what is happening to them when they're in custody?

Jioji Ravulo  08:48

Within custody, there are certain control measures that are put in place for behaviour, but even for their engagement with their health and wellbeing, let alone nutrition and schooling. So it's almost like there are elements there that help them to engage to a certain degree. But it's an artificial ecosystem within, it actually is something that sort of sets them up for a limited period of time, and then when they go back outside into the community, if we've then not got health services and educational services and legal and welfare services that are not responsive, like what they saw in custody, then it just falls over. Their experience of being able to engage well in those areas is not sustained. So I think we need to do a through care. We need to be mindful of how we do it holistically across the community, rather than just in these segmented moments in time. That is helpful, but then not helpful when they get out.

Karlie  09:46

I'm Karlie. I'm a Yuin woman. I'm currently the community and culture lead at Weave Youth and Community Services. Think Taleigha was about 16 or 17 when we started working together. Taleigha had had her own history with the criminal justice system and DCJ, but she also had intergenerational engagement with those systems as well, through her mum and her dad. So it was, you know, not just Taleigha’s own experiences that brought her to Weave, it was also the history that she had carried from, you know, before she was even here. Weave’s mission is to walk alongside people who come to us for support. Weave is an organisation that really looks at the strengths that already exist in our communities that we work within, and, you know, harnessing those strengths alongside the clients and communities that we work with to bring about positive, meaningful change.

Taleigha  10:43

Weave has supported me by helping with like counselling, someone to just have a chat. They've helped me with housing. They've helped me with support with my daughter. Right now, I'm working on getting custody of my daughter again, and also gaining some employment. I wish this was something that I had when I was 13.

Mark Scott  11:17

In Queensland, we had a state election a little while back where the Liberal National Party had a promise of adult crime, adult time, and say, look, we're not going to have dispensation for how young the offender is, serious crime will be treated as though an adult did it. Now, I think you'd be arguing that's a misreading of the causes of the crime, and that that would eventually be counterproductive, but I'm interested in the politics of it. Why do you think a policy like adult crime, adult time gets political currency? Why a party would put it up on billboards? Why they think it's a vote winner? And how do you run against that flow of the public almost wanting to be tough on crime in this way?

Jioji Ravulo  12:05

We all love to blame people for doing things that are wrong. And I think this is the issue, as I started in our conversation, we fail to see the human element behind what's happening for these individuals. We see them as rejects. We see them as losers, as no hopers. And as a result, we then create this tension of us and them. So this further fuels a political motivation to try and stamp this out, to dehumanise the people that are involved in crime. And this is a winner for people, because it's about them being able to go, ‘yes, if we're tough on crime where we're being responsible for you being safe’. People like to feel safe in their own communities, in their own homes. But what we fail to do is realise the humanity behind what is happening for such young people. We fail to understand that such young people are coming from serious trauma that perpetuates their ongoing involvement in their spaces. So we actually also know from the research and from the statistics that if you invest well in programs that help to deal with the significant social and welfare needs of such young people, that investment is much more cheaper than actually running these centres, these carceral spaces. By actually investing in social and welfare services, you actually save heaps of money in actually running these particular prisons.

Mark Scott  13:36

So if the punitive approach isn't working in Australia, what do you see working more effectively overseas that we could learn from?

Jioji Ravulo  13:43

Programs that work are the ones where we try and help young people to feel like they belong to their communities. So this is where we're supporting them with their educational goals and aspirations, but even their employment goals and aspirations. For a lot of young people involved in the criminal justice system, they haven't consistently been engaged in their learning environments in schools. So how do we create school and learning environments that provide them with an opportunity to feel engaged? Because if we retain them in their schooling, they feel like they belong, and then they can learn, and they can continue to be part of their learning environment. So that's big. Same sort of thing with their health outcomes. A lot of the time, their physical and their mental health are areas that need to be worked on. So if we're able to address some of those particular needs and areas, this supports their ability to thrive in their physical and mental health. And then you've also got stuff around how they are living, where in which communities are they living? So if they've got housing and they're living in in housing, we support people that are able to purchase food and other areas of resources that we take for granted, this helps them to also feel supported in their own homes, let alone their own communities. So there's some basic examples of creating opportunities for young people to feel included, and that's a big part of them being able to then feel like they can then contribute to their own families, to their own communities, and they're able to move beyond some of those areas of crime.

Mark Scott  15:12

And are there any countries that have more aggressively pursued policies like that and seen the reduction in recidivism that we desire?

Jioji Ravulo  15:20

Yeah, in Aotearoa, New Zealand, they've got a lot of community-focused programs where they're doing diversionary programs, where they're working collectively with police and youth justice and education and child protection services to ensure that they're working holistically. You've got countries in Europe that are also focusing on the social and welfare needs of young people and ensuring that they're supported and then they're given opportunities to create goals and aspirations beyond crime. I've been involved in running and creating those programs as well, where you create case management programs and models that work with police and the Children's Court and youth justice, and when you think holistically and create holistic approaches to wellbeing, this actually does make a big impact.

Taleigha  16:11

I was about 15 when Koori Court, when I got a spot in Koori Court at Surry Hills Children's Court. To be accepted in Koori Court, you have to have a referral. You would have had to plead guilty to a crime and then be accepted. And then there would be a support plan put in place and monthly goals and check-ins. So instead of facing the judge, you sit at a conference table with the judge, and you've got support from elders, other support workers, from in the court. And yeah, they really like push for you to, like, reach your goals and stuff. So a goal could be, like, not going into custody that week, or going for your driver's license, working towards getting a job, which I think that's what's different with Koori Court than the main system. You actually work towards something. The mainstream system, you're just missing a whole day of school to front up to court, to just be seen by a judge, and then go home feeling like shit. If Koori Court wasn't there, I think I would have had a lot more involvement with the court as a young person. If I could talk to politicians and decision makers, I would want them to know that children don't benefit by getting put in the system.

Mark Scott  18:12

You're a social worker. Tell me what you think the role of social workers should be in the youth justice system.

Jioji Ravulo  18:20

So from a practice point of view, it's about being able to create case management approaches that are strength-based and solution-focused. So that's where we work with young people to set goals and aspirations that enable them to create or have agency and be self-determined. So giving them opportunities to take control of different areas of their lives and to move beyond those situations and circumstances. That might be through case management and counselling or group work, or even working with and alongside community groups to help them to feel involved and included. So that's a practice point of view. From a policy point of view, it's about being able to look at different strategies and different options and programs that enable social systems to work together. So this is where we might write in policies that encourage the justice system to work inclusively with the welfare systems and the education and the health system. Because a lot of time they work in silos, they are actually not working together. And from a research point of view, understanding the lived experience, understanding what it means to come from these backgrounds, and understanding how we can then make it make sense, and connecting that all together. So creating the research so that we can create responsive policy and then practice that actually meets the needs of such individuals so that we can create sustainable solutions.

Mark Scott  19:44

So take me through an example. You have an 11-year-old who's committed a crime - under the model that you see working, how could that person and society have an improved experience? What would you like to see happen with that 11-year-old?

Jioji Ravulo  20:02

If we start with education, we look at what is happening for their learning journey and how they're engaging in their learning in their local schools. So looking at what resources and support is happening in the school, but also in the home. Are there resources that support their learning and engagement? From a health point of view, looking at areas of their physical and mental health, are there certain areas and needs that they might have? It might even include things to do with their vision and how they may engage with their learning based on their eyesight and other areas of wellbeing, too. From a welfare point of view, looking at their housing and accommodation and the arrangements in the communities in which they live. So what sort of resources do they have available at home, and how do we support them to thrive in their in their homes? And from a legal point of view, how do we improve any of those relationships that they might have with police? Especially if they feel like they've not had positive involvement and engagement with police. And as a result of encouraging such young people and their families—that's key as well—if we're working with their families to also have access to those particular resources and support to help them to engage in their child's education and their health and their welfare and their legal areas, then it means that they can journey together and work together, and that deters their disengagement and marginalisation from areas of society. And then, as a result, we're creating scope for people to move beyond areas of crime, and that means that we don't then have to be so heightened about the individual young person being involved in crime. So there's a reciprocal benefit from this. 

Mark Scott  21:43

It sounds a fairly intensive case management system where you're drawing in expertise to provide support. There might be one view that that's expensive, particularly for the taxpayer, to deliver on. But would you argue that thinking of it that way as a false economy, that to invest up front, early, even if intensively, will actually save the taxpayer money down the track?

Jioji Ravulo  22:11

Exactly. We know that by investing in these particular programs and these particular approaches within the government, let alone within the community sector, there's a massive return on investments. The social return on investment is massive. And we know different programs for every dollar. There's lots of different programs where, for every dollar, you might get five to $10 back on investment because of the benefits associated with taking that holistic approach to offending.

Mark Scott  22:41

So as I hear you saying that, the if you approach it in that way, you're saving the taxpayer money, you're reducing the likelihood of reoffending, and perhaps putting a young person on a pathway to ongoing detention and criminality. So why wouldn't politicians do that? I think they would argue they probably wouldn't do it because it might not be politically popular. So what is there about the national psyche that needs to change in order to bring about the reforms that you would advocate through your research? 

Jioji Ravulo  23:14

Yeah, great question. That is the billion dollar question mark. What I would encourage is a genuine, honest conversation. You've got some really great politicians out there that are advocating in the context of what I've been sharing in our conversation. At the same time, it is about political will, people understanding that they need to step back and be less conservative around their views associated with crime. And when I mean conservative, I'm not talking about political persuasion. I'm talking about the way in which we spend money on communities. I think we're quite conservative in the funds that we release to communities to actually support the development and inclusion of people in their own communities. And so we need to see that monies is released to individuals and communities actually is of great benefit. So I would actually, if I had politicians in front of me, I would give them the opportunity to understand, firstly, the lived experience of people and what's happening for them in space and place. I would then also talk to them about the economic benefits associated with investing in these particular resources. And then I would encourage them to see how much money we would save from putting in these particular resources, you know, the punitive approaches, because we would save so much money,

Mark Scott  24:35

So develop the empathy and then explore the evidence?

Jioji Ravulo  24:39

Completely agree. I love that summary. So yes, definitely create empathy and explore the evidence. Love that.

Mark Scott  24:51

That's Jioji Ravulo, Professor and Chair of Social Work and Policy Studies in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. You also heard from Taleigha and Karlie thanks to Weave Youth and Community Services. And if you want to hear more from people working on solutions to our most pressing problems, there's a whole season of new episodes out now. Just scroll back in The Solutionist feed to find more. The Solutionists is a podcast from the University of Sydney produced by Deadset Studios. 
 
 

The Solutionists is podcast from the University of Sydney, produced by Deadset Studios. Keep up to date with The Solutionists by following @sydney_uni on Facebook and Instagram, and @sydney.edu.au on Bluesky.

This episode was produced by Liam Riordan with sound design by Jeremy Wilmot. Supervising producer is Sarah Dabro. Executive editors are Kellie Riordan, Jen Peterson-Ward, and Mark Scott. Strategist is Ann Chesterman.

This podcast was recorded on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. For thousands of years, across innumerable generations, knowledge has been taught, shared and exchanged here. We pay respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.