Many moons ago listening to the brekkie show on Radio National, the host on that particular morning was filling in for Fran Kelly. Her guest was the director of a youth service in Queensland, they were discussing the harrowing story of the systemic abuse of young people in youth detention in Queensland. These practices are not new, especially when it comes to the treatment of incarcerated young Indigenous people. However, the Australian community was being forced to revisit the issue with fresh reports surfacing and young people speaking out about their treatment.
The Harrowing Reality of Youth Detention
The youth services director was an articulate and clearly experienced person. He reeled off myriad statistics, some packing quite a punch in terms of the systemic nature and outcomes of the abuse. The discussion was robust between the host and guest, the questioning interesting and responses provided some hope.
The Cost of Youth Detention
Towards the end of the interview, the show host raised the issue of the public cost of youth detention. The expert guest explained that 85% of young people in detention were on remand, awaiting sentencing. He went on to explain that it costs the justice system hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep one person in detention for one year. In fact, he said that we could fund an entire youth service for a year for what it costs the system to detain one young person for the same time.
An Innovative Idea for Change
Many of the young people on remand would wait up to one year for sentencing. What happened next in the conversation was fascinating, and perhaps typical, of how most of us respond to a new, sometimes seemingly audacious idea. The youth services director put forward the idea of releasing the 85% of young people in remand, into the community and providing instead a full rehabilitation youth service, which would not only ease the financial burden to the public purse but also deliver better future outcomes for the young offenders.
This idea, without any further exploration by the host, was abruptly discounted. She simply said, “well I don’t think that is the answer”.
End of conversation.
The Importance of Nurturing Ideas
What happens when we discount an idea so decisively? What happens when we throw cement on an idea instead of fertiliser? If innovation is the result of greenhousing new ideas, what happens if there are cracks in the glass, gaping holes that compromise the process? We get the same thinking, the status quo. We get the same results. We get institutionalisation, entrenched thinking, we get rivers of thinking that are etched deep but only flow so far.
Diversity of voice, opinion and real conversation are the heartbeat of a healthy democracy, the life blood of a good society. Somehow, probably in part through misguidance from the media, ideas are seen as the domain of the elite. This creates a barrier to more people contributing their ideas. Believing that they can’t influence the outcome, at best these people play small, at worst, these people stay silent. There is a fact about the future. It belongs to those who can respond creatively: to people, to their environment and to the complex challenges before them.
Becoming a Greenhouse for New Ideas
Next generation ideas are critical to that creativity.
How can you and your organisation be a greenhouse for news ideas and thinking? How do we as individuals and businesses begin the complex process of ideation and innovation? Funnily enough, it starts within. Our ability to respond creatively, first has to pass through the brain’s hard wired urge to react instinctively. We can’t respond when we are caught in the rapture of the amygdala, in the whirring of emotions, especially when we’re talking fear and protection.
Both individually and organisationally, we need to know ourselves, and identify the trigger points we have that close us off to new ideas, new thinking, and new ways. What the Radio National host ought to have done was perhaps pause, let her unspoken fears run out and then with an open mind, a thinking mind, respond to the idea. This would have served the conversation so much more productively, served the listeners and most importantly, served these young people who deserve a society that will nurture them to their full potential, not punish them evermore.
