A Children’s Rights Assessment of Juvenile Detention in Australia

Canvassing the socio-legal context for youth detention in Australia with a focus on international human rights law and legal frameworks within Australian states and territories, this book examines the recurring children’s rights-violations of recent years, and puts forward strategies for reform.

Providing a comprehensive national picture of juvenile detention legislation, policy and practices using a children’s rights framework, this book is a detailed synthesis of investigatory reports, judicial decisions and inquiries by both Royal Commissions and parliamentary committee inquiries that together establish an evidence base for assessing the compliance of youth detention with Australia’s international and domestic human rights obligations. It also proposes nine pillars for reform to help Australia move towards children’s rights compliance.

A Children’s Rights Assessment of Juvenile Detention in Australia provides an invaluable resource for policy-makers, lawyers and criminologists, as well as for students of law and criminology.

Anita Mackay has been researching the compliance of Australian closed environments with Australia’s international human rights law obligations since 2011. She has been an academic at La Trobe Law School (La Trobe University, Melbourne) since 2016 and is currently a Senior Lecturer. Dr Mackay’s 2020 book titled Towards Human Rights Compliance in Australian Prisons won the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) biennial Christine M. Alder award in 2021. Prior to 2011, Dr Mackay worked as a senior legal officer in a variety of government policy areas, including family law and access to justice.