Alternatives to prison

Prisons only harm children; they never help. The criminal legal system takes children away from their families, communities and other support, and pushes them down a path that often leads to adult prison.

But other solutions exist. There are hundreds of community-led alternatives to prison around Australia that are already in place, and working.

Governments need to scale up and fully-fund services that help children get their lives on track rather than sending them to prison. To find out more about the work of organisations operating in your state, click the interactive map below.

Click on the map icons to see details of community-led alternatives to prison

Program information and locations were collected from publicly available sources and have been reproduced to the best of our ability. We have focused on collating programs which support children between the ages of 10 and 14 years old.

Disclaimer: This is not a comprehensive list of every available community-based program or service and may contain information which is not up to date as the availability of services change over time.