The interlocking and compounding nature of systemic injustice(s)
Education
Children and young people with mental health disorders, cognitive/neuro-disabilities and/or related complex needs (often generically described in education discourse as having ‘special educational needs’), also routinely encounter educational disadvantage for a variety of inter-related reasons. Increasingly schools in Australia and in England and Wales are managed like small businesses, expected to meet or exceed key performance indicators (principally indexed to attendance records and examination results) and operate within a competitive ‘market’ in which the funding formula is often determined by ‘outcomes’. Within such contexts, children and young people with mental health disorders, cognitive/neuro-disabilities and/or related complex needs tend not to comprise attractive ‘business propositions’ and, as such, they frequently experience problems in obtaining places in schools (Graham et al. 2016). Even when such children and young people are offered places, parents are often advised to only send their child to school on particular days for which funding is available (Graham and Spandagou 2011), or that their child would be better placed at an alternative school (Lilley 2013). Further, children and young people with mental health disorders, cognitive/neuro-disabilities and/or related complex needs face a higher likelihood than others of being suspended from school for fixed terms or, more problematically, of being permanently excluded from school (Indig et al. 2011). All of this also heightens the prospect of criminalisation given that the correlations between poor educational engagement and youth justice involvement are well established (YJB 2005; McAra and McVie 2010; Hemphill et al. 2016; McAra and McVie 2016; Fitzpatrick et al. 2019) and, in particular, ‘school exclusion is a key moment impacting adversely on... conviction trajectories’ (McAra and McVie 2010: 201). As one interviewee reflected:
The best way [for schools] to meet academic levels is not to be dragged down by those who are struggling with lower academic achievement which most of our children are... it’s much easier both in managing the school environment and achieving the outcomes they need if when these kids... start playing up, they’re removed from that environment. That’s a current policy. That’s happening day to day and we’re seeing that impact every day in our Youth Justice clients. (QLD, Senior Government Officer)
Once such children and young people are denied access to education (refused places, suspended or excluded), the probability of youth justice engagement multiplies and ultimately signals what has been termed the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ (Christie et al. 2005; Kupchik 2014). Many of the young people we interviewed reported such experiences:
I got expelled from there. And then I went to [school name], got expelled from there... and I went to high school, got suspended... then I didn’t bother going back. And then I went to this school that only goes for two days a week... and they kicked me out. (NSW, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Young Person -1)
Perhaps the greatest injustice is that for some of the children and young people we interviewed penal detention was conceived as the only viable gateway to educational support:
I get heaps of help... It’s better than the outside school. Cos I get frustrated on the outside. I just walk out from school... When I feel like I don’t have help... It’s just better in all sorts of different ways in here. (NSW, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Young Person - 6)
When such children and young people are eventually released from custody, however, such educational support disappears and the challenges intensify:
... if we start saying... we’ve got a young offender who wants to come to your school the doors will close straight away. (NSW, Juvenile/Youth Justice Manager)
The [post-custodial| re-integration is a massive challenge. Schools don’t want kids returned, they’re difficult kids. Schools are all competing and have reputations they want to preserve... With high rates of drug and alcohol use, high rates of psychological distress, high rates of abuse and neglect. How do you re-integrate a kid under those circumstances? (NSW, Juvenile/Youth Justice Practitioner)
Closed doors and denied re-integration effectively create vicious circles for children and young people with mental health disorders, cognitive/neuro-disabilities and/or related complex needs. Withdrawing educational support serves to compound the prospect of further criminalisation and youth justice intervention and, in doing so, it ultimately consolidates systemic disabling effects.
