As the first in a series of books by the young people in Ashley Youth Detention Centre, this publication aims to provide insight into the circumstances of their lives inside and their hopes for the future.

This is the first of many books you will see from the young people inside Ashley. It proves two things:

1.    Ashley residents are people – pretty ordinary teenagers caught in an extraordinary situation;
2.    It is not hard for Tasmania to honour them as people by listening to what they have to say.

Most of the residents in Ashley and their families have been clients of Child Protection during their young lives. Most of them are waiting for a Court case to decide whether they have broken the law or what should happen to them if they have. Today, 70% are not serving a sentence but are there on remand.

There are too many Aboriginal residents in Ashley for the general population. Today, 30% are Aboriginal when they are only 3% of the total Tasmanian population. 

The 2009 Australian Institute of Criminology report found no significant difference between the reoffending of juveniles locked up and those not locked up. Other studies in the last 10 years report that custodial sentences actually increase reoffending.

Only children and young people can change anything inside themselves. If the idea of locking them up is to help them, then we start by finding out what it is like to be in Ashley, not as we imagine it, but as they tell us.Then we can start to work out what tools they need to make change and break the chains that bind them to Ashley. The voice this book gives them may be one of those tools.