The Challenges

The overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia's justice systems remains one of the most pressing human rights issues the country faces. First Nations adults are imprisoned at more than fifteen times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. In some jurisdictions, First Nations young people comprise over 60% of those in youth detention while representing around 6% of the youth population. These figures have worsened, not improved, since the Closing the Gap targets were established.

The drivers are well documented. Children and young people entering the justice system are among the most disadvantaged in the country: they are more likely to have experienced poverty, family violence, housing instability, exclusion from education, mental ill-health, neurodisability, and contact with child protection systems. Research consistently shows that around 60% of young people in detention present with multiple mental health conditions, while rates of acquired brain injury and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder far exceed those in the general population. These are not individual failings. They reflect institutional failures across health, education, welfare, and child protection systems long before any offending behaviour occurs.

The remand population is driving much of the increase in custody numbers, with many people detained before conviction for want of stable housing, support services, or bail conditions designed with their circumstances in mind. Expenditure on detention continues to outstrip investment in prevention: in 2022–23, over $850 million was spent nationally on youth detention, while community-led prevention programmes remain underfunded and short-term.

Australia's minimum age of criminal responsibility remains among the lowest in the developed world. Children as young as ten can be prosecuted and detained. While Victoria has moved to raise the age to twelve, most jurisdictions have resisted reform despite clear evidence that early criminalisation compounds disadvantage and increases reoffending.

Grounds for Hope

The evidence for prevention is not theoretical. It is demonstrated, documented, and waiting to be scaled.

Justice reinvestment has shown what becomes possible when communities lead. Maranguka in Bourke, New South Wales, was Australia's first operational justice reinvestment initiative. Led by the Bourke Tribal Council and grounded in First Nations self-determination, it demonstrated measurable reductions in youth offending, family violence incidents, and contact with police. The Australian Government has since committed to a National Justice Reinvestment Program supporting community-led initiatives across the country.

Place-based programmes are delivering results. In Logan, the Resolve programme has reduced offending while achieving significant cost savings compared to detention. In Cairns, the Johnathon Thurston Academy's 'You Got This' initiative found that nine out of ten participants with prior offending histories did not reoffend within nine months. Victoria Police's Embedded Youth Outreach Program, partnering officers with youth workers, has connected young people in crisis to services and reduced youth offending and victimisation. The Australian Human Rights Commission's 2024 report, 'Help way earlier!', provides a comprehensive blueprint for reform grounded in children's rights and developmental evidence.

International models offer further insight. Spain's Diagrama centres, focused on education and preparation for release rather than punishment, report reincarceration rates of just 13.6% over six years. The economic case is equally compelling: research indicates that a dollar invested in early childhood intervention yields a two-dollar return, while the cost of late intervention in Australia exceeds $15 billion annually.

What these initiatives share is a commitment to prevention rather than reaction, to community leadership rather than top-down imposition, and to addressing the conditions that produce harm rather than simply managing its consequences.

What we Bring

Prevention Works – Australia connects research with implementation. We work with governments, commissioners, Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations, practitioners, and civil society to translate what is known about preventing harm into strategies that can be delivered in specific places and contexts.

Our founding partnership in Australia is a combination of research expertise and operational knowledge and this is central to our approach: evidence matters, but so does understanding the realities of implementation within complex systems.

We offer:

• Strategic consultancy for governments and commissioners seeking to design prevention-focused policy
• Training and mentoring for practitioners working across justice, health, education, and community services
• Evaluation that captures what works, for whom, and in what circumstances
• Knowledge translation through open-access resources, toolkits, and learning networks
• Implementation support to help communities move from strategy to action

We work with cultural humility, recognising that Australia's justice systems have been instruments of harm for First Nations peoples and that lasting change requires Indigenous-led solutions. We do not arrive with prescriptions. We listen, learn, and support communities to develop responses grounded in their own knowledge and priorities.

The opportunity

Australia does not lack evidence. It lacks the sustained commitment to implementation that transforms research findings into changed lives. Prevention Works – Australia exists to accelerate that shift: connecting the knowledge that exists with the communities and practitioners who can act on it, building capacity for prevention across sectors and systems, and demonstrating that alternatives to crisis response are not only possible but more effective and more economical.

The blueprint exists. The programmes have been tested. The communities are ready. Prevention works. The task now is to make it the norm.

Get in touch

If you are working on prevention in Australia, whether in government, community organisations, research, or frontline practice, we would welcome the opportunity to connect.