Youth detention costs soar as Indigenous children bear the brunt

Australia is now spending more than $1.1 billion a year locking up children, with new figures showing the cost of youth detention has almost doubled in a decade while outcomes are getting worse. Youth detention now costs an average of about $1.3 million per child each year (more than $3,600 a day) yet most children who are jailed return to the system within a year.

The latest Report on Government Services from the Productivity Commission shows that on an average day 734 children were detained across the country in 2024–25 and 62 per cent of them were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. In NSW, the number of Indigenous children in detention has jumped 86 per cent since 2020–21, while in the Northern Territory 95 per cent of children behind bars are Indigenous. Advocates say the figures confirm that governments are pouring money into a system that is both expensive and harmful.

Justice Reform Initiative spokesperson and former National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds said the data reveals “A costly and devastating policy failure”. She noted that about 85 per cent of children released from detention return to sentenced supervision within 12 months, meaning the system is failing to rehabilitate young people or keep communities safe. Instead, she argues, governments are paying a growing premium for a revolving door of incarceration.

The new numbers land in the same week a major review by the United Nations Human Rights Council again called for the country to raise the age at which children can be prosecuted and jailed. At Australia’s latest Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, more than 120 countries made around 350 recommendations, with about 40 nations urging Australia to lift the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14. Many states highlighted that the current laws disproportionately affect First Nations children.

Aboriginal legal and community groups say the spending boom shows governments are choosing punishment over prevention. Organisations including Change the Record and Amnesty International Australia have repeated their calls for investment in Indigenous‑led diversion programs, on‑Country healing initiatives, housing and family support services that address the causes of offending, rather than building more cells. They argue that redirecting even a fraction of the detention budget into early intervention would keep more children in school and out of court.

The data on youth detention also mirrors trends in the adult system. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that as at 30 June 2025 there were 17,432 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults in prison (a 10 per cent rise in a single year) making up 36 per cent of all prisoners. Yet First Nations people account for only about 3.8 per cent of the national population, according to the bureau’s most recent population estimates. Advocates say that unless governments act on the warnings from the United Nations and their own experts, another generation of Aboriginal children will be pushed from schoolyards into cells.