The Human Rights Commission has released a crucial report titled "Help Way Earlier!", which focuses on transforming child justice through early intervention. This publication highlights the need to value children and provide them with the early support they need to thrive.
The VCI is dedicated to championing children’s rights and ensuring they are treated with dignity and respect. Since 2016, VCI has been working to advance community awareness about the importance of valuing children and addressing systemic barriers that impact their lives.
'Help way earlier!’ How Australia can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing investigates opportunities for reform of child justice and related systems across Australia based on children’s rights and sound evidence. The report includes the voices of children and their families, and stakeholder submissions, interviews and roundtables.
The treatment of children in the criminal justice system, some as young as 10 years old, is one of the most urgent human rights issues facing Australia today.
Children and young people in this report spoke about what is needed to prevent children’s contact with the child justice system. Their insights confirm that crime committed by children is a symptom of children’s needs not being met.
“Tragically, by not addressing their human rights early on, and instead taking a punitive approach to their offending, we are essentially criminalising some of the most vulnerable children in Australia.”
National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds
