Would you not resent being locked up when you have not really committed an offence? Indeed, you would! Well, this is the plight of asylum seeking youth who are confined to detention centres.

The issue whether youngsters seeking asylum should be confined to a detention centre or be assimilated into the community has become so controversial that it has attracted much public opinion and media coverage. In this context, youngsters or youth means teenagers of 15 to 18 years and a detention centre is defined as a place where refugees or illegal immigrants are confined till their case is determined. My contention is that asylum seeking youth should be integrated into the community. Youngsters incarcerated in detention centres are denied their education, exposed to moral corruption and are subjected to a stunted psychological growth. My critics argue that these youngsters should not be released to the community because, if released, they would resort to unbecoming conduct. I will prove that this argument is not tenable.

When such children are incarcerated in a detention centre, they are denied the education that such youngsters deserve. Reporting about the Broadmeadows Detention Centre, the Herald Sun of 16 November 2010 comments: “seven boys were hospitalised after a brawl over the single computer”. Resorting to fisticuffs to grab the computer is their way of communicating their need for mental activity. This is their way of asserting that they need an educational curriculum to keep them mentally occupied. This is their way of expressing their pent up frustration in not having what they need. Are the authorities so naïve that they are unable to perceive this? Thus, being denied educational opportunities, these youth cry out for their release to the wider community.

Furthermore, asylum seeking youth in detention centre are strongly tempted to become morally corrupt. The Herald Sun, in its webpage, reports that there are 159 unaccompanied youth in the Christmas Island detention centre and 223 in the Mainland Centre. “Unaccompanied” means being entirely on one’s own and lacking parental supervision. These unsupervised youth have plenty of opportunity to behave indecorously. The Herald Sun of 16 November, 2010 comments about the Broadmeadows detention centre: “unaccompanied minors were involved in three scuffles in the dining room”. The same newspaper again reports: “six young unaccompanied girls and boys resorted to sexual misconduct in the Christmas Island centre”. Hence, asylum seeking youth should not be confined to a detention centre because this exposes them to promiscuous conduct which leads them to moral degradation.

Asylum seeking youth who are not part of normal society are subjected to a stunted psychological and social development because they do not have opportunities to interact with others in the wider society, encounter life’s everyday situations and deal with them as mature people. It is this point that the editorial of the Herald Sun, quoted earlier, emphasises when it comments: “every day in detention is another day of damage”. Considering this anomaly, Prime Minister Julia Gillard asserts: “I don’t think it is the Australian way to have kids behind razor wires. . . ”; she is stressing that these youth deserve “humane treatment” that would promote their psychological and social development.

Critics of my viewpoint say that if youngsters in asylum centres are released to the community, they would resort to violence and unlawful conduct. In order to avoid such a situation, their release needs to be done in an orderly manner. Firstly, they should be admitted to a school and secondly there should be a system for supervising their progress and conduct. Then, these youngsters would refrain from unseemly behaviour. Therefore, the argument of these critics is not tenable.

A personality no less than Australia’s Prime Minister has suggested that asylum seeking youth should be released from detention centres and treated humanely. This humaneness means releasing them to the community, giving them opportunities for their education and for developing psychologically and socially and drawing them away from temptations to be promiscuous. If they are supervised while they interact in the wider society, we could rest assured that they will conduct themselves decorously.