“Locking Kids Up Is Not The Answer”: ‘Q&A’ Took On Don Dale With Dylan Voller
"The punitive model just doesn’t work."
Dylan Voller, the indigenous teenager at the centre of the Don Dale prisoner abuse scandal, has called on the government to send juvenile offenders into rehab programs rather than youth detention.
Voller questioned the current approach to youth justice on last night’s episode of Q&A, which was filmed in Alice Springs for NAIDOC week. “There is a great rehab centre here in Alice Springs and at Loves Creek Station called BushMob,” he told the panel. “Why can’t we have more youth detainees from the juvenile centre go there where they can work with horses, and learn to build, instead of sitting in a cell with no rehabilitation?”
Shadow assistant minister for Indigenous health Warren Snowdon vouched for the effectiveness of BushMob, which provides medical assistance, counselling, and training and education programs for young people between the ages of 12 and 25.
“The punitive model just doesn’t work,” Snowdon said. “Locking kids up is not the answer.”
Independent MP Bob Katter agreed that the current system was failing. “We put in a wild kid and get back a professional criminal,” he said.
Images of a hooded Voller shackled to a restraint chair sparked international outrage after they were broadcast as part of a Four Corners investigation into the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre last year. The report sparked a royal commission into juvenile detention in the NT, which is expected to deliver its findings in September.