Youth justice custodial services quarterly incident reporting (1 January to 31 March 2024)

Reports for other quarters are available

Category One incident reporting data provides a snapshot of incidents and allegations in relation to young people within youth justice custodial facilities, operated by the Department of Justice and Community Safety. Serious incidents must be recorded and reported at the time the staff become aware of them, regardless of whether the incident or allegation is later substantiated or disproven. Incident reports also include disclosures of historic abuse and assault that are alleged to have occurred prior to a young person entering custody.

Category One incidents are the most serious incidents which cause or have the potential to cause the most serious harm. These include serious assaults (including young people against staff, young people against young people and staff against young people), riotous behaviour, and serious injury or illness requiring medical treatment and/or hospitalisation. 

Incident reporting enables youth justice services to take prompt corrective action to protect the wellbeing and safety of young people and staff where necessary, to better understand the underlying causes of incidents to prevent their recurrence.

Following legislative changes made early in 2016, all Category One incident reports involving a child or young person in out-of-home care or detained in a youth justice facility are provided to the Commission for Children and Young People.

As part of the Machinery of Government process, which was announced by the Premier on 6 February 2017, youth justice services transferred from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Justice and Community Safety on 3 April 2017. Incident reporting data relating to Youth Justice Custodial Services in previous quarters can be found on the Department of Health and Human Services website.

Incident and isolations reporting data undergoes routine data validation. As such all data is subject to minor changes over time. Total numbers contained in this report may not be directly comparable to subsequently released incident and isolations reporting. Incident reporting data can include more than one individual. 

Table 1: Youth Justice Custodial Services Category One Incidents Quarter 3 - 2023-24 [1][2]:

Assault

Assault can include alleged physical and sexual assault. This includes serious physical assaults resulting in injury or having the potential for a serious outcome. All allegations of serious assault and violence are reported to Victoria Police.

Behaviour

Incidents can include serious dangerous and disruptive behaviour impacting on security and safety. 

Other incident types

Other incidents include some attempted suicide and self-harm resulting in medical attention, poor quality of care. Other incident types also include illness and community concern.

[1] Incident reporting data undergoes routine data validation and as such is subject to minor changes over time. Total numbers contained in this report may not be directly comparable to subsequently released incident reporting information.

[2] COVID-19 related incidents have been re-categorised as Category 2 incidents based on young people rarely presenting with concerning symptoms. Accordingly Q4 2022-23 was the last quarter of COVID-19 incidents being reported within Category 1 incidents.