Nuance needed in Tasmania's youth detention conversation

Not because I am particularly concerned about what people say, rather, that the commentary will be based on the quote snipped from my words and not from reading my contribution in full.

Another soft on crime failed Labor lefty politician trying to remain relevant, they will decry to deflect.

Right off the bat, no one should be naive enough to believe that some young people between the ages of 12 and 17 are incapable of making criminal decisions.

Decisions that deserve consequences which act a deterrent and aim to keep the community safe.

But we also acknowledge the research tells us that youth incarceration delivers one certainty - an undergraduate transition program to adult prison.

Admittedly, community and judicial leadership in this space is tough, and policies and interventions should not be hastily designed during a five-week election campaign.

I have said and written about it before, politics leaves no room for nuance.

In fact, there is a deliberate attempt by political strategists to remove nuance from any policy debate regarding complex social issues.

However, when I was faced with reading generalisations, it was impossible to remain silent.

Liberal candidate for Braddon and Police and Emergency Services Minister Felix Ellis, standing alongside the Premier and fellow candidate for Braddon, Jeremy Rockliff, offered in the release of his party's predictable electioneering policy to be 'tough on crime': "Tasmanians have had a gutful of juvenile career criminals," - a short statement full of contradictions. He went on.

"If you're able to just go back home to the broken family that you potentially come from, you won't get the therapeutic services that can turn your life around that's why it's critical that people [come] before a magistrate and we hold them to account," he continued.

The lack of nuance in the statements or even an acknowledgment that therapeutic jurisprudence - problem solving - is already a well-understood component of prevention and youth justice responses was troubling.

And the "slap on the wrist" criticism of the youth judicial system that Mr Ellis also strategically chose to employ is contrary to a significant body of legal and community research.

To make matters even worse, Mr Ellis' choice of calculated words were uttered following his government's response to the damming Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government's Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings, which highlighted that young Tasmanians have been wronged in public institutions for decades.

The damage is permanent, sometimes, and tragically, life ending.

The direct result of the policy means more young Tasmanians in youth detention.

I find it difficult to believe that the policy sits comfortably with the Tasmanian Premier who was determined to "lead with heart", nor the former premier, Peter Gutwein, who was brave to announce the closure of Ashley Youth Detention Centre during 2021.

Premier Rockliff backed the new policy call, "This has to stop, so we're going to do everything we can to throw the book at them".

That doesn't sound like Premier Rockliff 'leading with heart', it sounds like a political candidate wanting to sound uncomfortably tough and willing to say things that wouldn't sit comfortably when he was informing parliament that the state government would accept all 191 recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry.

"We failed you. We are all accountable. And we are sorry," he said at the time of release - utterly contradictory to his election campaign utterances.

Former premier Peter Gutwein deserves credit for making the decision, following revelations heard during Budget Estimates, to announce the closure of Ashley Youth Detention Centre.

At the beginning of the century, Attorney General Judy Jackson made a very similar decision.

Willow Court was closed in 2000, and The Royal Derwent Hospital soon followed, ceasing operation 2001. They were once described as insane or mental asylums or even further back, lunatic asylums.

The Ashley Home for Boys renamed the Ashley Youth Detention Centre will be closed. On the face of it, the decision has been welcomed by the community.

The Boys' Reformatory was opened at the Cascades Female Factory in 1869 as an alternative for the homeless and those who had broken the law.

Soon followed the Boys' Training School opened at South Hobart in 1869, which moved to New Town in 1884.

In 1922 the program was on the move again and this time, much further North.

Inmates, held on remand or serving custodial sentences, have been detained at the facility on the outskirts of Deloraine since that time with questions asked and complaints made for just about as long.

But one shining light has been the Ashley School, a Department of Education facility, since opening in 2003, with restorative justice principles underpinning the learning program.

Perhaps that is a solid steer for the future.

Young people will continue to commit terrible crimes, misguided individuals with long histories of trauma and abuse. The job of politicians is to develop well-researched policies and laws that aim to make a difference.

How will history describe the closure of Ashley Youth Detention Centre and the state government's response and implementation of recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry?

Unquestionably, it will be exactly like Willow Court - how and why did we leave it so long!