Detention (2026) by Australian writer, Ralph Jackman, is Jackman’s memoir about his 2 years working in a Victorian youth detention centre.

Ralph Jackman had worked as a sports reporter, but in midlife undertook a Masters Degree & became a teacher. His first job was at Parkville College, the school campus attached to the Parkville Youth Justice precinct in Melbourne’s inner north.

Although Ralph Jackman was hired to teach boys on remand while they were waiting court trials, he discovered the boys were often confined to their rooms for hours, even days on end.

Jackman saw how this isolation impacted on the boys & by the end of his 2nd year of teaching he began speaking out against what he saw as a violation of the boys’ rights.

However, when he spoke to those responsible, he experienced pushback rather than a commitment to change things for the better so that the boys could benefit from the education ostensibly being provided for them.