First-contact triage
A no-wrong-door intake that asks what the young person needs in the next 72 hours: safety, legal help, bail, housing, family, school, culture, health, or transport.
723 youth-justice records. 609 evidence-rated. 93x average cost gap.
Australia locks up children.
There are better answers.
This is a public guide for people who have seen the harm and want to understand what can change. Start with the human story, then find the evidence, services, alternatives, costs, and people already working for a different future.
The numbers are catalogue records, not endorsements. Each record should be read with its evidence level, source trail, location, and review status so weak signals stay visible.
Start where you are
Choose the door that matches why you came.
You might be here after CONTAINED, looking for help, checking a claim, adding a local service, or trying to move money toward what works. Start with one path. You can go deeper later.
I walked through CONTAINED
Keep goingIf the container stayed with you, start here. See why children are held on remand, what else could happen, and what you can share.
I need support now
Find supportFind legal help, crisis support, mentoring, housing, and community services without needing to understand the whole system first.
I work with young people
Add your workAdd a service, program, place, or local example so families, workers, funders, and advocates can find what already helps.
I do legal or advocacy work
Use the evidenceFind cases, campaigns, source links, and plain-language issue guides that help turn concern into a stronger public argument.
I fund or shape policy
Compare costsCompare what detention costs with the local support that could keep young people safer, connected, and out of custody.
I want to understand the proof
Check the claimsCheck the claims, named organisations, sources, and limits before you repeat anything or ask someone else to trust it.
A simple path
From seeing the issue to knowing what to do next.
01
Feel it
CONTAINED turns youth detention from an abstract policy issue into a human encounter.
Open02
Name it
Understand remand: why a child can be held before sentence, what it costs, and what support can change the path.
Open03
Find help
Look for services, community programs, and practical alternatives near the people who need them.
Open04
Prove it
Check the evidence trail before asking anyone to trust the claim.
Open05
Move it
Share the page, add a local program, back an organisation, brief a decision-maker, or bring people together.
OpenFinding alternatives
If detention is the wrong answer, what support can actually hold a young person?
The Australian Living Map of Alternatives helps people look for local services, court support, housing, mentoring, school pathways, cultural support, and community-led programs that can change the path before custody.
Bail and remand support
Court support, bail address options, family liaison, reminders, transport, mentor check-ins, and practical plans that make release safer than custody.
Stable place to land
Housing, respite, supported accommodation, family mediation, and safe local places so "no address" does not become a detention pathway.
Learning and work
Flexible school, TAFE, training, paid work, social enterprise, and creative practice that give a young person a next week worth turning up for.
Healing and culture
Elders, family, on-Country work, AOD support, mental health, peer leadership, and trauma-aware practice held by trusted local people.
Proof and resourcing
Plain evidence, costs, referral details, outcomes, funding needs, and source links so local work can be found and backed.
One roof
The long-term goal is a real place where people can sit together and solve practical problems.
A local JusticeHub should bring support navigation, alternatives, legal help, story consent, funders, and practice learning into one room, so families and workers are not left to navigate everything alone.
Welcome desk
A calm front door that routes people to support, not a maze of forms.
Local alternatives bench
Screens, maps, and cards showing local alternatives, referral paths, evidence, and gaps.
Law and advocacy table
Cases, campaign memory, briefs, complaints, and source packs that help people act carefully.
Story consent studio
Empathy Ledger capture, review, withdrawal, attribution, and cultural safety before anything public.
Funding room
A place to turn community work into clear asks, partner packs, and practical backing.
Practice lab
Practitioners, young people, families, and system people improving the model together.
Centre of Excellence for Youth Justice
If we ask people to believe something, we show where it came from.
JusticeHub is careful with claims. We name the source, show the organisation where possible, and mark what is still being checked.
60
Triangulated claims
Checked against 3+ sources
28
Corroborated
Checked against 2 sources
149
Tier 1 frontline YJ orgs
Confirmed in civic register
1,603
ACCO certified
Via ORIC public register
Detention
$1.3M
per young person per year
$3,634.9/day national average. NT: $3,452.25/day. ROGS 2024-25.
Community Models
$14K
per young person (average)
Across 1,193 models with cost data.
First issue guideResearch, not legal advice
If CONTAINED leaves people asking "what now?", start with youth remand.
This guide explains why young people are held before sentence, what it costs, what alternatives exist, who is organising, and what a visitor, advocate, worker, funder, or decision-maker can do next.
Law
cases, campaigns, and rights in plain language
Support
detention sites, local alternatives, and funding
People
stories only when consent makes them safe to share
Three ways to go deeper.
Once you know why you are here, choose a practical next step: find help, add what you know, or use the proof.
Find support
Find services near you. Crisis support, legal help, mentorship, housing. No judgment, just options.
Find supportStrengthen the work
Add your program, place, story, or local knowledge so people can find the alternatives already working.
Add your workShift policy and money
See the evidence. 1,708 support records are catalogued, with 609 carrying an evidence signal. Use that to ask better questions.
See the proofThe public record
Numbers are not enough on their own. They help people see where money goes, what support exists, and which claims still need care.
Stories
All stories
Oonchiumpa: What Happens When Community Leads
Benjamin Knight
There is a version of this story told through numbers. It has its place. But numbers are a translation, and something always gets lost in the translation. This is the fuller version.The cost of a cellAustralia spends somewhere north of $1.3 million e...
The Cure Already Exists
Benjamin Knight
We spend $1.3 million a year per child to lock them in a room with no window. The recidivism rate is 85 percent. But in communities across Australia, the alternatives are already working. This is what they look like.
Eating the Paperwork: How AI Creates a Renaissance of Community Engagement
Benjamin Knight
Every small organisation in Australia has been drowning in compliance, reporting, and grant acquittals. What AI now makes possible is the compression of that administrative layer, freeing 50% of capacity back to the relational work that actually changes lives. JusticeHub is the living proof point.
Spain Diagrama Trip Reflection
Benjamin Knight
A personal reflection on visiting Diagrama youth detention centres in Spain — contrasting their compassionate, rehabilitation-focused approach with Australia's punitive system.
Building Revolution in Shipping Containers: The Story of CONTAINED
Benjamin Knight
CONTAINED is not another awareness campaign with sad statistics on posters. It's an immersive experience built from shipping containers - transformation chambers that make the invisible visible and the abstract tangible.
Walking Toward Justice: A Personal Journey
Benjamin Knight
I didn’t set out to build a platform like JusticeHub. I set out to listen.
Stay with the work
The alternative is already here. The next step is helping more people find it, trust it, fund it, and grow it.
The work is happening in communities, services, courts, campaigns, and families. JusticeHub brings those threads together so people can act with care instead of guessing.