Allocating $25 Million for Youth Detention Center Proposal

Assessment 3: Professional Task (Briefing Paper)
Introduction
This paper is describing proposal of allocating $25 million to State fund for developing new
youth detention centre.
Statement of Proposed change: State Government of Australia needs to allocate $25
Million to State fund for development of detention center for youth.
This proposal is being supported in this study as it is for providing opportunity to juveniles to
move towards positivity. Respect and Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) are
two government authorities that help in developing good manners and mentality in young
people. This study is including recommendation to engage Respect and AIHW to
conduct different programs and gather funds for detention centre for young people.
Background
The development of new youth detention center in essential for government because many
children in Australia are residing in risk environment. As stated by Fitz-Gibbon (2018),
antisocial behaviour increases in a child due to factors like culture and economy. Children
from poor economic background and living in aggressive environment develop a criminal
mentality in them. Australian Institute of Criminology research reveals offending by children
aged 10 to 14 rose 12 percent between 2008-09 and 2009-10, reaching a record high
(Youthpolicy.org, 2013). These statistics show that youth crime is increasing and need to be
controlled by framing proper rule. Investing funds on building youth detention centre can be
considered as a positive outcome of this problem. Socio-cultural factors like interaction with
family is a major factor that is impacting on youth crime. Peer influences impacts on
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behaviour of child and gives rise to antisocial behaviour (Vita, 2015). Political ecology
theory can be related to this problem as it evaluates human organization and social forms.
This theory states that unequal distribution of costs and benefits can reinforce pre-existing
inequalities in society.
Welfarism can be identified as rationality of youth governance. Welfarism states that actions
taken by a government or policies set must be done on the basis of consequences (Vita,
2015). These morally significant consequences need to achieve human welfare. Welfarism is
associated with economic welfare. Hence, the government needs to allocate this fund to
develop youth detention centre after evaluating its consequences to human welfare. This can
be related to a corresponding strategy of remoralization. Governing young people can help to
reinstate moral feelings in youths. Remoralization helps to solve a problem by strengthening
and deepening a welfare program. Government can reduce youth crime by adopting this
strategy along with developing youth detention centre. As opined by Kippin (2018),
remoralization is a strategy of governing, which can include whole community and families.
Different aspects of this remoralization strategy are associated with the proposed change.
This includes proper monitoring of the detained youths and engaging their families in the
program. This can help to improve the quality of environment upon which the child will grow
up in future. Different factors like parental control, rearing practice of a child can be included
in this strategy. Other aspects of this strategy include training regarding provision of respect
to others and gaining education can be associated with this proposed change.
Media plays an essential role in highlighting different problems among juveniles like drug
abuse, increase in crime. This proposed change can help to reduce these problems in society
and increase morality of children. Media channels have also highlighted the relationship
between lack of proper care and education and growth of crime. Media also plays a huge role
in creating moral panics and fear of crime. However, media lacks attention in formation of a
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proper effective youth criminal justice policy. Youth detention centre provides education and
training that helps to increase personal skills of a child. Hence, this proposed change is
appropriate that can help to reduce youth crime rate and increase morality in them.
Research and analysis of the proposal
The proposal off allocating $25 million to state fund to develop a detention center for young
is being supported as government of Australia is trying to implicate positive change in
Juvenile criminals. As stated by Shepherd et al. (2016), offenders of 10-17 years old are put
in the juvenile detention centres for their correction. The number of Juvenile offenders is
increasing day by day in Australia and the government of this country is liable to build more
Youth detention centres for detainees. More than 54064 youth offenders have been arrested
by police in the years 2016 and 2017. The statistic is showing that near about 13% of the total
offenders in Australia are youth (Abs.gov.au, 2019). Government needs to provide
opportunity to them to rectify their mistakes. For this reason, building of youth detention
center is important. Allocating funds to this kind of project can be considered as good
approach of government.
Building youth detention centre will affect various groups of young people. For example,
ethnic minority juveniles and indigenous juvenile offenders can have training and education
from youth detention centres that may change the way they look at the world. As mentioned
by Lynch (2017), this group does not get enough social support and lack of literacy among
this community leads to many criminal offenses by juveniles. Building youth detention centre
may impact on the mind of these groups of offenders and this aspect may help them to
become a better person in future. As mentioned by Naylor (2016), "People held in places of
detention are always at risk of abusive treatment, whether they are in prisons, juvenile
detention, psychiatric facilities, or immigration detention". However, government must
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