Smart Justice for Young People (SJ4YP) is a coalition of organisations working to build a Victoria where all children and young people are given the support they need to thrive, no matter who they are or where they live.
Backbone Organisations
Working together with
Supported by
The Latest
Article
Senate Committee finds there is no youth crime crisis and backs in Working Together Action Plan
24 September 2026
Organisations working with children and young people in Victoria welcome the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee's report on Australia's youth justice and incarceration sys...
Article
Stigma, Discrimination and the Weaponisation of Survival: Women's Experiences of the Intersection between the Child Protection and Criminal Legal Systems
27 March 2026
'Stigma, Discrimination and the Weaponisation of Survival' is a powerful collaborative research report into the intersection of the child protection and criminal legal systems and the harm women ex...
Article
Smart Justice for Young People: Senate Inquiry into Youth Justice and Incarceration
16 March 2026
Smart Justice for Young People (SJ4YP) gave evidence to the Federal Government's Inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system. Across the country, particular groups of children a...
Article
Ending Strip Searching in Australian Prisons
03 March 2026
FIGJAM, Flatout and the Human Rights Law Centre’s landmark new report Ending Strip Searching in Australian Prisons, calls for strip searches in Australian prisons to be banned in law by all Austral...
Article
A Tale of Two Cities. The Hidden Geography of Police Powers in Victoria
21 January 2026
A study of designated areas 2019 - 2024.
Article
Racial Profiling, Policing and Lack of Accountability
01 January 2026
Book chapter
Article
Recent publications related to racial profiling in Victoria
01 January 2026
The Racial Profiling Data Monitoring Project have compiled a list of recent publications related to racial profiling in Victoria.
Article
Smart Justice for Children and Young People across Australia: Submission to the Senate Inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system
19 December 2025
Evidence suggests that what we see here in Victoria is most likely being seen across other jurisdictions, highlighting the need for a coordinated national approach to youth justice and incarceratio...
Article
Open Letter to the Premier
25 November 2025
We, the undersigned community organisations, write to express our deep concern and strong opposition to the Victorian Government’s proposed youth justice changes, which would allow children as youn...
Article
Knee-jerk ‘Adult time for violent crime’ laws are a costly mistake that will make our communities less safe
12 November 2025
As a coalition of lawyers, social workers, youth workers, financial counsellors and experts, Smart Justice for Young People strongly opposes the Victorian Government’s youth justice announcements t...
What we do
Our current system is not working, it’s time to change it.
Victoria’s overall youth incarceration rate is changing, but certain young people still come into contact with the justice system at disproportionately high rates. They are over-represented in police contacts and youth detention, and they are under-served by government and community services.
The problem with over-representation
Smart Justice for Young People (SJ4YP) brings together the people affected by the problem, to shift how systems respond to and support children and young people.
A group of people is over-represented in the criminal legal system if they are more likely to be in contact with the system than their group’s proportion in the population would predict.
Over-represented in police and criminal justice system contact
Under-served in the provision of essential services (such as access to housing, healthcare, education and employment).
The over-representation of these five groups of young people in the criminal justice system is an urgent problem that requires our immediate attention.
We need a response that is sufficiently sophisticated to address the entire range of intersecting systemic and structural issues that keep these five cohorts over-represented.
We need to focus on the systems that are not working for young people in addition to the young people themselves.
How we work
We foster collaboration, harness cross-sector expertise, and build capacity to identify where change is possible - and how to make it happen.
To make effective change, we need a sophisticated response that addresses the entire range of intersecting systemic and structural issues.
Smart Justice for Young People (SJ4YP) works across seven domains:
Domain 1
Criminal and Civil Justice Systems
In Victoria, criminal justice and correctional law and policy decisions have directly or indirectly contributed to the over-representation of the five groups of young people.
Domain 2
Policing
We welcome the recent acknowledgement of the connection between systemic racism within Victoria Police and the over-representation of First Nations people in the criminal justice system by Chief Commissioner Patton to the Yoorrook Justice Commission.
Domain 3
Health and Wellbeing
A child’s opportunities in life should not be damaged because they cannot access treatment and support for health and wellbeing issues — nor should they be criminalised — but this is the Victorian reality.
Domain 4
Housing and Material Needs
Young people make up 21 percent of single people accessing homelessness services in Victoria. Every night 7,600 young people in Victoria are homeless.
Domain 5
Children, Families and Their Communities
Unsupported people living with untreated complex trauma can struggle to maintain a safe home for children and people needing their care. Children in these households absorb the impacts of parental and intergenerational distress.
Domain 6
Education
Children facing educational barriers and exclusion are more likely to enter the criminal justice system. For example, in 2019, 68 percent of children in custody were recorded as having been suspended or expelled from school.
Domain 7
Whole of Government
Our whole of government approach to ending over-representation sees responsibility spread across education, health, housing, family and community services, policing and justice systems. A response that involves government, statutory agencies and government funded community organisations.
Next steps
Our work aims for a Victoria where all young people, their families and community can get the care, support and opportunities they need to flourish in life while ending over-representation.
To end over-representation in the criminal justice system, Smart Justice for Young People is asking the government to act:
Ask one
The Victorian Government develop and implement a cross-ministerial portfolio and cross-departmental Framework to end the over-representation of the five youth cohorts in the criminal justice system.
Ask two
Government develops and adopts outcomes measures to monitor and report on progress towards achieving the proposed Framework in Ask One.
Ask three
Regularly assess the impact of proposed law reform, policies, and practices on groups affected by over-representation including genuine consultation and feedback as to the outcomes of those consultations as part of the Framework and adopted outcomes.
Ask four
Ensure services are adequately funded, over time, to enable deep collaboration and collective impact under the Framework
Ask five
Mandate all government and government-funded community delivered services across justice, policing, education, health, housing, child and family services to regularly undertake foundational and booster training on cultural safety, anti-racism, gender inequity, and trauma-informed practice as part of the Framework.
Ask six
Progress implementation of ‘Our promise, Your future: Victoria’s youth strategy 2022-27’ by strengthening the Office for Youth’s coordination role and investing in the youth and adjacent sectors to implement the strategy.
Ask seven
Commit to genuine First Nations self-determination and community control. This means prioritising the actions that First Nations people say will enable self-determination and end over-representation and under-representation, including power, money and resource transfer and sharing.
Ask eight
Develop a whole-of-government Multicultural Youth Justice Strategy, that sits alongside the existing Framework to End the Criminalisation of Young People in Residential Care and Wirkara Kulpa.
Ask nine
Bring Community Crime Prevention and Community Reintegration Support into the DFFH portfolio for 10-25 year olds. Shared responsibility between DJCS and DFFH will enable the creation of collaborative responses e.g. Youth Justice Community Support Service and Putting Families First.