Explainer: Behind the NT Government’s Sweeping Youth Justice Reforms

The Youth Justice Legislation Amendment Act 2025, passed on the 11th of August, has reshaped the way children in the Northern Territory are dealt with in detention and before the courts. 

The amendments have removed legislation including the long-standing safeguard that detention should be used only as a “last resort”, and  police discretion to divert young people instead of arresting them has been narrowed. New legislation authorising the use of restraints such as handcuffs and spit hoods in detention centres, and the use of reasonable force on children in detention have also been added to the Act. 

The government justifies these measures as providing a response to community concerns about safety and as creating clarity for frontline staff. 

Yet their path to increasing safety raises questions about whether the Territory is moving further away from the commitments made after the 2016 Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children. 

At the centre of their reforms is a shift in the NT’s principles. By removing the “last resort” clause from the Youth Justice Act, the new legislation reduces the weight court can give to diversion and rehabilitation. With this adjustment in priorities and principles, how courts and detention officers balance decisions in practice is significantly altered. 

Diversion has also been tightened to the point it can be ignored. Under the new framework, if a young person denies involvement in an offence, police can bypass diversion altogether and proceed with charges with reasonable basis for suspicion. What is considered reasonable is not laid out in the Act, which undermines informal and restorative pathways that are often more effective than punishment for first-time or low-level offenders. 

The regulations now also formally list handcuffs, ankle cuffs and the controversial spithoods as permitted equipment in youth detention. These devices, in particular spithoods, were condemned by the Royal Commission as more harmful than beneficial and unnecessary in 2017. However, the government frames this as a matter of safety and transparency, pointing to staff being spat on or assaulted as examples.  

This Act does not stand alone either. It follows the Bail and Youth Justice Legislation Amendment Act 2025, passed on the 30th of April, which created a presumption against bail for many youth offences. 

Courts are now required to be satisfied to “a high degree of confidence” that a child will not reoffend before granting release. But again, a criterion is not established for this “high degree of confidence”. For children without stable housing or family support, meeting that threshold could be extremely difficult. 

Together, the two Acts represent the most substantial tightening of the NT youth justice system in years. They suggest a broader readjustment by the Country Liberal Party from rehabilitation, to “rebuild the territory” towards custody and control. 

The Territory’s approach also sets it apart from the rest of the nation, aside from Queensland’s, who share a very similar mindset. While other jurisdictions are moving to raise the age of criminal responsibility or expand diversion programs, the NT has lowered the age back to 10 and removed protections designed to keep children out of detention where possible. 

The Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria conducted a study that found that the younger a person is when they enter the youth justice system, the more likely they are to reoffend. With NT’s lowering of the age of criminal responsibility, it is possible that the territory will witness an increase in repeat offenders. 

Legal institutions have criticised the government’s changes. The Justice Reform Initiative has warned of higher incarceration and costs, and of being highly regressive. Lecturers of law at the University of Queensland say that detention is more likely to entrench offending than reduce it. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, who are already the overwhelming majority in custody, the impact is more than likely to be disproportionate. 

These reforms must also be read in the context of why they are happening. Law-and-order policies like being “tough” on crime featured heavily in the CLP’s election campaign, and the government made it clear that it intended to act on public frustration about crime. 

Reintroducing tools such as spit hoods and making bail harder to access sends a clear visible signal that the government is being “tough” on youth offending, and all crime in general. 

Again, the challenge is whether this visible toughness is actually effective policy. Detention is expensive and, as multiple inquiries have shown, rarely delivers long-term reductions in crime. 

But politically, the reforms are relatively popular around the Territory, where concerns about break-ins and car thefts have been very prominent. With public support backing the CLP, the NT is likely to witness more reforms of similar nature in the upcoming future.

Supporters of the new laws argue that the system had already tilted too far toward leniency and lacked consequence for repeat offenders. Opponents say the reforms are a step backwards that will worsen existing disadvantages for many children. Both views will now be tested in practice. 

If youth crime rates do decline, the CLP will be justified for their actions. However, if not, and more children end up cycling repeatedly through detention, the government may be forced to answer whether its approach addresses the root causes of offending or simply responds to it. 

What is clear, however, is that the Territory has taken a different path from the rest of the country. Whether that path leads to safer communities or repeats the mistakes of the past is still uncertain.