This is another insightful article in this important series, dealing with the inevitable pushback from the pro-drug injecting room lobby.
What is not addressed is the weight that should be given to this group and do they have a vested interest.
The argument is over establishing Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs in lieu of safe injecting rooms.
A very similar concept to the position of the CAA.
As a society, we would not tolerate accepting that a person with any sort of health issue was not treated, but rather, their affliction or disease was just managed, and the causes were actively facilitated when cures were available.
We will be closely watching the legal ramifications of the options to close and modify Injecting Rooms and convert them to Hart Hubs. Altogether a sound strategy from which addicts may recover from their illness rather than the addiction being fed.
The operator of a Toronto overdose prevention site is challenging Ontario’s decision to prohibit 10 supervised consumption sites from offering their services.
In December, Neighbourhood Group Community Services and two individuals launched a constitutional challenge to Ontario legislation that imposes 200-metre buffer zones between supervised consumption sites and schools and daycares. The Neighbourhood Group will be forced to close its site in Toronto’s Kensington Market as a result.
In its court challenge, the organization is arguing site closures discriminate against individuals with “substance use disabilities” and increase drug users’ risk of death and disease.
The challenge is the latest sign of growing opposition to Ontario’s decision to either shutter supervised consumption sites or transition them into Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs. The hubs will offer drug users a range of primary care and housing solutions, but not supervised consumption, needle exchanges or the “safe supply” of prescription drugs.
Critics say the decision to suspend supervised consumption services will harm drug users and the health-care system.
“We’re very happy that the HART Hubs are being funded,” said Bill Sinclair, CEO of Neighbourhood Group Community Services. “They’re a great asset to the community.”
“[But] we want HART Hubs and we want supervised consumption sites.”
‘Come under fire’
On Thursday, the Ontario government announced that nine of the 10 supervised consumption sites located near centres with children would transition into HART Hubs. The Neighbourhood Group’s site is the only one not offered the opportunity to transition, because it is not provincially funded.
Laila Bellony, a harm reduction manager at a supervised consumption site at the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre in Toronto, says she is worried that drug users may avoid using HART Hubs altogether if they do not facilitate the use of drugs under the supervision of trained staff.
Data show this oversight can prevent deaths by facilitating immediate intervention in the event of an overdose.
Bellony is also concerned the site closures will increase the strain on other health-care services. She predicts longer wait times and bed shortages in hospital emergency rooms, as well as increased paramedic response times.
“I think the next thing that will happen is the medical or health-care system is going to come under fire for being sub-par. But it’s really all starting here from this decision,” she said.
She questions how the HART Hubs will meet demand for detox and recovery services or housing solutions.
Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre and its sister site, the Queen West Site, serve hundreds of clients, Bellony says. By contrast, Ontario’s HART Hub rollout plan indicates all 19 hubs will together provide 375 new housing units across the province.
“The HART Hub model is not a horrible model,” said Bellony. “It’s the way that it’s being implemented that’s ill-informed.”
In a response to requests for comment, a media spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Health directed Canadian Affairs to its August news release. That release lists proposals for increased safety measures at remaining sites, and a link to a HART Hub “client journey.”
On Dec. 3, the Auditor General of Ontario, Shelley Spence, released a report criticizing the health ministry’s “outdated” opioid strategy, noting it has not been updated since 2016.
National data show a 6.7 per cent drop in opioid deaths in early 2024. But experts caution it is too soon to call it a lasting trend. Opioid toxicity deaths in 2023 were up 205 per cent from 2016.
“We concluded that the Ministry does not have effective processes in place to meet the challenging and changing nature of the opioid crisis in Ontario,” the auditor general’s report says.
“The Ministry did not … provide a thorough, evidence-based business case analysis for the 2024 new model … [HART Hubs] to ensure that they are responsive to the needs of Ontarians.”
‘Ill-informed’
Ontario has cited crime and public safety concerns as reasons for blocking supervised consumption sites near centres with children from offering their services.
“In Toronto, reports of assault in 2023 are 113 per cent higher and robbery is 97 per cent higher in neighbourhoods near these sites compared to the rest of the city,” Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones’ office said in an Aug. 20 press release.
The province has also cited concerns about prescription drugs dispensed through safer supply programs being diverted to the black market.
Police chiefs and sergeants in the Ontario cities of London and Ottawa have confirmed safer supply diversion is occurring in their municipalities.
“We are seeing significant increases in the availability of the diverted Dilaudid eight-milligram tablets, which are often prescribed as part of the safe supply initiatives,” London Police Chief Thai Truong said at a Nov. 26 parliamentary committee meeting examining the effect of the opioid epidemic and strategies to address it.
But Bellony disputes the claim that neighbourhoods with supervised consumption sites experience higher crime rates.
“Some of the things that [the ministry is] saying in terms of crime being up in neighbourhoods with safe consumption sites — that’s not necessarily true,” she said.
In response to requests for information about the city’s crime rates, Nadine Ramadan, a senior communications advisor for the Toronto Police Service, directed Canadian Affairs to the service’s crime rate portal.
The portal shows assaults, break-and-enters and robberies in the West Queen West neighbourhood have remained relatively stable since the Queen West supervised consumption site opened in 2018.
In contrast, crime rates are higher in some nearby neighbourhoods without supervised consumption sites, such as The Junction.
“While I can’t speak to perceptions about a rise in crime specifically around supervised consumption sites, I can tell you that violent crime is increasing across the GTA,” Ramadan told Canadian Affairs. She referred questions about Jones’ statements about crime data to the health minister’s office.
Jones’ office did not respond to multiple follow-up inquiries.
Mixed feelings
In July, Canadian Affairs reported that business owners in the West Queen West neighbourhood were grappling with a surge in drug-related crime.
Rob Sysak, executive director of the West Queen West Business Improvement Association, says there are mixed feelings about their neighbourhood’s site ceasing to offer safe consumption services.
“I’m not saying [the closure] is a positive or negative decision because we won’t know until after a while,” said Sysak, whose association works to promote business in the area.
Sysak says he has heard concerns from business owners that needles previously used by individuals at the site may now end up on the street.
Bellony supports the concept of HART Hubs, offering addiction and support services. But she says she finds the province’s plan for the hubs to be unclear and unrealistic.
“It seems very much like they kind of skipped forward to the ideal situation at the end,” she said. “But all the steps that it takes to get there … are unaddressed.”
A 67-year-old male driver lost his life when his small car was destroyed by a speeding truck.
The truck was allegedly stolen, and Police had failed to stop it using ‘stop sticks’.
Apart from the ‘stop sticks’ being old problematic technology, we need to look further as to why this life was wasted and what systematic failures contributed to the death.
The ability of police to intercept dangerous vehicles safely must be addressed, and new technologies capable of stopping a vehicle must be legitimately explored.
The CAA has long advocated for the introduction of the G-Tag (see https://caainc.org.au/the-g-tag-a-new-…community-safety/) to give Police the ability to disable a vehicle that poses an unacceptable threat to the occupants or the public more generally. Additionally, it will also reduce the danger to the police themselves, and that has to be a significant positive.
This technology will also play a critical role in any upsurge in terrorism.
Of equal importance, the circumstances of this crash and waste of life can be put squarely on the shoulders of the judiciary. Not the government but the judiciary.
It was reported that,
“A 40-year-old Deer Park man, who police allege was driving the truck, was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
It was later revealed he was on bail for previous car theft and drug possession crimes and was due to face court in February after police charged him with another car theft, unlicensed driving and possessing drugs in November.”
If this life lost is not to be in vain, the establishment of nothing less than a Royal Commission to examine the role of the judiciary in these matters is well justified.
The accountability of the Judiciary is the point to be questioned, noting that in the lower courts, and in particular bail hearings, the presiding judicial officer is never named by the media. In contrast, the higher court Judges are regularly named as a matter of course. A legitimate form of accountability is lacking in the lower jurisdictions.
This lack of accountability, where the presiding officers can remain anonymous, must change so the public can know which judiciary members are responsible for bad outcomes.
The judiciary generally seems to hide behind the government, claiming they are only working within the laws the government provides. This is nonsense.
They must interpret the laws relevant to the circumstances of the matters before them.
An inquiry would expose the folly of the infection of the judiciary by the failed theoretical strategy called ‘Restorative Justice’ and given the regular failure of courts to hold perpetrators to account and protect the public, that infection has reached epidemic proportions, and people are dying as a result.
The pendulum has swung too far in favour of the criminals, and the rest of the community is indeed paying a very high price – with their lives.
The CAA invites the Government and the Opposition to urgently meet with the CAA to explore the G-Tag issue.
The Herald Sun of January 7, p16, quotes Canadian Government figures of 49,000 deaths from opioid abuse between January 2016 and June 2024. This is a spine-chilling message for Victoria’s Labor Government, which has enthusiastically embraced pill testing at music festivals and has demonstrated a consistent determination to continue with a “harm minimisation” strategy that is a total failure in curbing the use of illicit drugs.
The North Richmond so-called “Safe Injecting Facility” that has so devastated the lives of local residents is a further example of Labor’s disregard for the many adverse consequences of catering to drug users at the expense of the community.
Canada’s experience ought to be warning enough that Victoria is headed in the entirely wrong direction with its current illicit drug policy.
It is time for the vast silent majority to realise that they have the power to force change. If Labor won’t listen, the only remedy is at the ballot box to support any political party that will.
The media headlines scream the plight of Melbourne’s affluent leafy suburbs and the burgeoning crime rates affecting the wealthy areas of Melbourne.
The Police are just as quick to quote statistics allegedly disproving any neighbourhood concerns, accusing them of over-egging the problem. The difficulty with that approach is that Police are trying to second guess how the community feels. If they don’t feel safe, all the statistics in the world will not enhance their eudemony.
As reported, the residents of Middle Park are hiring private security guards to patrol their neighbourhoods to help keep their streets safe. Other private security companies have already been patrolling areas in Werribee, Wyndham Vale, Camberwell, Hawthorn, Toorak, Brighton, Caulfield and Balwyn for months.
What concerns the CAA is that with nine or ten communities already hiring security, what of the suburbs that cannot afford this approach? Are they metaphorically kicked just down the gutter?
With the growth of private security services, communities deem it necessary for their safety because of Police ineffectiveness; the risk of litigation against Victoria Police must be considered a reality, particularly if all of the aggrieved communities join together with those who cannot afford security and pursue a class action against VicPol for lack of service. Apart from a class action, the group may form a serious voting block, developing clout with a political bent.
Victoria police, for its part, quotes crime statistics to counter the arguments of lack of Police service, and therein lies the problem. There are numerous excuses, but admitting failure is not one of them; it would, however, be a good place to start.
Victoria Police just doesn’t get it.
Policing in Victoria has lost touch with its primary function, preventing crime. That there are many arrests and successful police operations does not address the crime issue in its broadest context; arrests are only the measure of the failure of policing to prevent crime.
The CAA has spoken with many police executives and is disappointed that they do not even know or understand the basics of policing.
Over time, the Force has manipulated the narrative of proactive policing to encompass any action that the police perform; in other words, investigations are considered proactive, and this phenomenon is not restricted to a couple of outlier senior commanders but to command as a whole led by the Chief Commissioner.
The proactive, reactive conundrum example is that a Police patrol tasked with a particular function to apprehend felons in a given area at a given time is classified incorrectly as proactive; it is active policing. Alternatively, Police tasked with reducing criminal activity in a given location is proactive policing; any crime detected as opposed to prevented is coincidental.
The difference is not too subtle. If a police operation is focused on trying to catch crooks, hiding behind bushes to catch them out has success. Their success is measured by the number of arrests, but do those arrests translate into crime reduction?
The most relevant assessment of Police effectiveness is not the number of arrests but advice from those whom policing is asked to deliver its services, and that is not the crooks and not the politicians. It is the victims.
To better understand the proactive reactive conundrum, the actions of a previous Chief Commissioner, when confronted with a strong recommendation to close a Country Police Station, come to mind.
The recommendation was based on the lack of arrests and the lack of crime reports over an extended period, inferring that the police member was lazy, incompetent or both. This particular station had the worst statistical data used as a benchmark for Police performance for the State.
The Chief Commissioner denied permission to close the station but directed the report authors to clone the police member as he was achieving the perfect record of any police station in the state.
There was no arrest because crime and crime reports were absent—the ultimate proactive policing model. That police member was involved in over twenty community organisations. The impact was that no one in his area wanted to let him down by committing offences.
Another classic example is the Police Highway Patrol (HP) working the Hume Highway out of Seymour one easter.
Renowned for the high accident rate, it was not abnormal to have a couple of fatalities over this period.
The Seymour HP patch was Kalkallo to Euroa. The Seymour car initially drove to Euroa, turned around, put on the car warning lights and drove south to Kalkallo ostensibly as a visual emergency vehicle.
The HP then returned to Euroa with the flow of traffic and then repeated this process for the duration of the shifts over Easter. The rationale was that the vast majority of vehicles using this part of the highway would have been exposed to the police car.
All hell broke loose when the Seymour HP supervisor at Benalla compiled the statistical returns after Easter.
The number of bookings by each office showed a stark disparity between the two offices.
At that stage, Benalla had the infamous HP member known to the truckies as 1080, as deadly as rabbit poison, and his sidekick 540, only half as bad.
The bullocking came, and it was severe including threats that the Seymour HP would be kicked off the Highway back to a station, and on it went. Eventually, the Sergeant took a breath when he was reminded that there had been no fatalities between Kalkallo and Euroa for the whole of Easter, but on his Highway, Euroa to the NSW border, they had three.
That is a classic proactive versus reactive approach to policing. The Benalla crew had heaps of bookings achieved by all sorts of creative techniques, but does that justify the three lives that could possibly have been saved had a proactive approach been adopted?
The supervisor never raised the issue again, and the Seymour HP member was not rated down on annual assessment.
Victoria Police has lost the ability to understand the essential policing role and refuses to address the anomaly in the Force strategy; we suspect predominantly through ignorance; however, when Senior Command doesn’t even know the difference between proactive and reactive, what hope do the subordinate officers and troops have of implementing proactive strategies?
The test should be not what the command thinks but what the public thinks and what type of policing they want because, currently, they are paying out the billion-dollar bills for a Force failing to deliver the outcomes they are employed to provide. The Force could well do with a decent injection of accountability to the community it is supposed to serve.
The advent of communities employing their own security to achieve a level of safety that police are not providing strengthens the argument that police in this state are failing.
If you have any doubts as to this failure, ask yourself why, if we are told there are all these crooks being caught, why do we feel less safe, and why are there more vicious and disturbing crimes being committed?
The CAA membership is growing through disenchanted members of the public angered by the lack of Policing effectiveness – we are heading for a crisis of lawlessness, and the community is acutely aware of it. Victoria Police seem to be in denial of the inevitability.
We already have a number of community members joining the CAA who are disenchanted with the status quo, whether it is the residents of North Richmond near the drug injecting room, A crime spree at a local Bingo Hall in the west, retailers in St Kilda dealing with drug addicts, community group in Dandenong being bullied by Local government, NSW Tobacconist being threatened by unlawful tobacco cartels, one punch victims in Eltham, a single small business owner in Croydon, issues with forest areas of the Yarra Valley, problems for night clubs in Prahran, or problems with Police corruption.
The CAA gives all these people who are disenchanted by policing a voice.
We have given Victoria Police ample opportunity to address their and others’ concerns. Still, there is a definite lack of enthusiasm on behalf of the Force to do its job.
There are many success stories; however, a typical response is to blame the victim, which is the lowest form of responsibility rejection, and that is, more often than not, from very Senior people who should know better but do not.
Perhaps we can assist the public in coordinating security services or provide advice and guidance in their situations.
With over 400 years of executive police experience in our group, we will surely be able to help.
If anyone is interested in assisting the CAA in helping yours and other communities, contact us at info@caainc.org.au.
The loss of Police shifts may be a major issue for Victoria Police, but it is devastating for the public.
The Austrian Newspaper reports on the 31st of December 2024 on the Victoria Police Annual Report, which indicates that the loss of operational Police shifts has grown to 200,000 from 2024, a 12% spike.
As scary as this headline number is, the reality is that global statistics of this nature enable the actual causes to be hidden.
The impact of attending Traumatic events is well-overplayed; police for generations have all been faced with traumatic experiences, none more horrendous today than Police have faced in the past.
We defy anybody to find a serving or former police member who does not experience flashbacks to a trauma they have been exposed to. These events are with the Police for a lifetime, so managing them is the key.
Police are ordinary people doing an extraordinary job, and the risk that their experiences can overwhelm them is acute; however, how these ordinary people deal with exceptional circumstances sets them apart.
Searching for a solution has spawned an exponential growth of support services across the organisation, but the problem continues to escalate.
As a strategy that is a failure.
Ploughing in more resources will inevitably lead to growth in shifts lost, not a reduction—the self-fulfilling philosophy syndrome.
The spawning of an industry designed to assist Police victims of alleged work-related trauma has grown so large that it now self-generates its own demand and need, bordering on touting for business as the inevitable competition for services increases.
This clearly shows a need to look more closely at causes that may be considered a no-go zone for Police Command.
There are obvious causes, and solutions are embedded in each.
The role of the Police Association in promoting Trauma and PTSI as a major part of the convoluted industrial action is not helping the Police members they allegedly represent.
It does, however, elevate the severity of the problem to near a contagion level- reminding older Police of the contagion at one stage of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI); everybody seemed to catch it.
The Police Association needs to urgently settle several ambit claims so that the workforce can return to some normality and the more contentious claims can be resolved later after the Force recovers to some degree.
One of the most effective methods to ensure the phenomenon continues at pace is the reinforcement among members of the dire state of their trauma exposure.
Continual exposure to the impact on mental health of trauma, in many cases, will promote the severity of a symptom looking for a name. Every foible experienced by Police is neatly packaged as PTSI, Trauma-related. Managers can then bundle up the issues affecting the Police member, tie it off in an apocryphal sack and stick it in a corner. No longer their problem.
The role of Police managers in this process cannot be highlighted enough. It is how the management handles staff that has a direct correlation to outcomes. Critically, this must be accurately measured.
There is broad anecdotal evidence that the trauma a member experiences is not of itself the cause for members not coping but rather the performance or lack thereof by managers throughout their chain of command that is the real cause.
This could quickly be resolved by setting benchmarks or key performance indicators on all ranks above Senior Sergeant, where the incidents of Trauma-related impacts on their staff are measured.
The span of control of everybody above that rank will quickly identify which managers are failing in this area to allow for targeted remedial action by the manager or their environment.
A lack of accountability has infected the Force, and this might be the first step in returning to an environment where staff may develop confidence in their managers by them being held to account.
The Force is not the only organisation with issues with management structure stifling the operations of the organisation.
It has been reported that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has problems similar to those of VicPol, particularly in staff retention.
The allegations indicated that the ADF management structure is bloated and that decision-making is drawn up from the frontline operatives. Ironically, it is the level of decision-making in the ADF that much of its proud history was built on. Empowering soldiers to make their own decisions.
The similarities with VicPol are significant as recent governments have eroded the independence of the role of Constable of Police, removing discretion and applying legislation that tries, unsuccessfully, to regulate the human function of Police in an environment that is actually unable to be regulated.
As with the ADF, destroying the soldier’s and police’s ability to make decisions and achieve job satisfaction directly adversely affects the organisation’s performance.
This relates directly to the recruitment advertising strategies of both organisations. The high-grade, high-gloss recruiting advertising sets a scene to encourage recruits; however, if the reality conflicts with the advertised image, therein lies the retention issue where recruits quickly become dissatisfied that the advertised careers are not what happens in reality.
Management accountability at all levels is the key to a solution. The issue is not how many senior managers are in the organisation but what is it they do. Solve that, and the overall organisation will again prosper.
To manage PTSI, coping methods of informal and formal design must be promoted, and seeking professional help must be downgraded to service only in extreme cases. It’s not the first stop.
A simple management technique is the metaphorical Filing cabinet approach.
A well-constructed four-draw filing cabinet has one unique feature- only one drawer can be opened at a time.
The metaphoric cabinet can store life/police experiences in an order that suits the individual.
The bottom draw is where the worst traumas are stored and are generally of a historical nature; the next draw-up has mid-term trauma, with the current issue needing attention in draw number one, moving them to draw number two due to the passage of time or significance.
That means only one trauma can be dealt with at a time, as you cannot open two draws at once, and you cannot inadvertently open the number four Trauma draw.
The key is that the member is left in control, although triggers may still exist.
Police are ordinary people who do extraordinary things; therefore, the risk of psychological damage is higher. However, focusing on management skills and promoting coping mechanisms rather than rushing to fashionable diagnoses would reduce the number of lost shifts and improve the welfare of all members.
Identifying the managers who lack personnel management skills in this area will become very obvious once the concept that they are accountable sinks in.
Measured by their pushback and inane rationalisations, they should immediately be encouraged to review their career aspirations. They are not fit to command.
Victoria Police are off to Court to battle the current industrial dispute with the Police Association.
This dispute involving pay and conditions has dragged on for far too long, which points to intransigence on the side of both parties.
The unfortunate part of this dispute is that the real victims will be the public.
There is no doubt that given the public discourse on crime at the moment, either the administration of Victoria police has got their priorities very wrong, or the police members themselves are not performing at their optimum effectiveness.
It has been reported that the force is substantially understrength, creating disquiet among the rank and file, which is totally understandable. This problem didn’t happen overnight; it has been festering for a long time and has now manifested into a major issue.
Poor recruiting practices and creating a top-heavy organisation are all the failings of the force administration.
If the Force has been trying to address the issue, there is no evidence that they are succeeding in recruiting or retention, the other key driver affecting police numbers.
Ironically, it was not that long ago that the Force dispensed with two senior ranks, Chief Inspector and Chief Superintendent, based on efficiency.
What this did was cause a fractured hierarchal structure where senior people were promoted, not having served at the various levels of command, to hone and develop their leadership skills, as was the historical case, leading to ordinary commanders at the highest levels.
The plethora of commanders at the top end of the organisation has caused the organisation to slow to a snail’s pace as each commander seeks to eke out responsibility and or relevance, stagnating creative management and the development and function of the organisation.
Moreover, the growth in the number of senior people has literally exploded contrary to the intended outcome of removing ranks.
The impact apart from the poor organisational performance is most felt at the coal face of Policing, and that translates into the reduced capacity of the organisation to perform its function, and the people suffer poor service delivery.
For every additional senior officer position, apart from that individual position being removed from the operations, their support staff will also be drawn from the frontline.
These numbers may seem small, but collectively, it is probable that ancillary staff could staff another police station.
There are any number of drivers to address retention, and among the most obvious is a lack of job satisfaction.
This industrial imbroglio will substantially negatively impact retention the longer it drags on.
Staff retention is not only impacted by bad management but also by government intervention in the police role based on ideological values rather than pragmatic outcomes.
The State would not be in the position it currently finds itself in had these issues been recognised and addressed.
On the other side of the ledger, the rank and file, represented by the Police Association, according to media reports, has shown no intention to compromise in this dispute and lacking from that side and never uttered in public discourse is that dirty word, productivity.
The public support for police, which has stood up surprisingly well, will tend to wain when they are put at risk because this dispute drags on. This is not helped by being reminded continually by police vehicles daubed in graffiti.
Public support is easily lost and very difficult to recover, making it imperative that the Chief Commissioner and the Secretary of the Police Association find a way to resolve the dispute soon.
All the Association demands are well and good; however, the Association has boxed itself into a corner where to compromise it will lose face, as the dispute drags on their position is weakened. And that, for some, will be translated into weakness rather than pragmatism to end this dispute.
The longer the resolution takes, the greater the risk there is to recovery in the relationship between the command and the frontline troops, which may become fractured beyond repair.
It is now time for the Chief Commissioner and the Secretary of the Association to meet one-on-one and thrash out a deal that can be taken to the Government.
The legal approach where the protagonist fires salvos from safely behind the lines of silk robes will more than likely exacerbate the dispute, irrespective of what the courts find.
How this dispute got to this stage is unclear. Still, we have confidence that without interference, the Chief Commissioner and the Association Secretary are well capable of thrashing out a resolution – time for leadership so direct contact with each other’s nemesis can resolve the impasse.
There is no adequate expression to describe the youth problem in this State.
Is the problem with the Police, the Courts, the juvenile legal services, the schools, parents or the mishmash of the government departments?
Quite clearly, the problems are with all of them. They all have one common denominator: they are not accountable in any tangible way for their failures.
It would be an interesting challenge to examine the performance of each resource and determine its effectiveness. Unfortunately, the spin doctors would have a field day explaining why their organisation is faultless; it will invoke the ‘it is him over there’ syndrome.
It truly is a mishmash when you ask Google AI to determine which Government department is responsible for youth-
The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) in Victoria is responsible for youth, and the Minister for Youth is Natalie Suleyman MP. The DFFH also supports the Minister for Children and the Minister for Disability.
The Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP) is an independent body that promotes the safety and well-being of children and young people in Victoria. The CCYP’s vision is to respect and defend the rights of children and young people.
The Department of Justice and Community Safety Victoria supervises children and young people in the criminal justice system.
Notably absent from CCYP’s charter is the promotion of the obligations and responsibilities of children that must go with protection of their rights.
It is not some aberration that the offences being committed by youths have been climbing in intensity for some time, highlighted by the level of violence currently being reported daily.
It is fast becoming a war zone out there.
What has become even more obvious is that the current systems, programs and strategies for keeping youth to be safe and away from violence and crime are not working.
Youths armed with machete-type weapons taking on Police at a Christmas Carol’s service has got to be the absolute last straw.
It would also not be a surprise if we found out the perpetrators responsible for the firebombing of the Jewish synagogue last week could well be the work of juveniles.
Juveniles again running amok in the CBD highlights the ever-present danger to all citizens by this crazy state of affairs.
There have been, and there will be, inevitable deaths as a result of this behaviour. Recently, it has become perilously close to being reality when a juvenile involved in a home invasion tried to attack a young mother who had a two-month-old baby in her arms. The baby suffered severe head injuries.
That the incident happened in another State is irrelevant but demonstrates the major danger of violent juveniles. They do not consider any consequences that deter them from this violence.
Many years ago, a highly respected trainer of police recruits, Les Harly, an ex-Olympic boxer, repeatedly warned recruits that the most dangerous perpetrator they would confront with a gun was a juvenile because they would not consider the consequences of pulling the trigger.
This is sage advice today as police will inevitably confront armed teenagers not with machetes as is the current favoured weapon, but guns.
The consequence of unchecked escalation of violence.
Still, the underscored effect on families whose safe haven, their home, is regularly violated is the most impacted and has the longest severe effect on the families.
Where do we start?
Our civic leaders of all political persuasions must first acknowledge there is a problem.
Then, a team must be assembled to advise on how the issues can be addressed.
As complicated as the problem first appears, the solution or solutions are easy to identify as the activities of the juveniles themselves provide the answers.
If a child is told not to put their hand in a flame but ignore the advice, then the pain of the burn will dissuade them from ever trying it again; there is a consequence for the action.
If they play on the roadway and ignore parental advice, with the parent resorting to dragging them off the road, the lesson is learnt: there is a consequence for their action.
Considering solutions from the top down would always fail, but we never expected the spectacular failure we are currently witnessing. The terrifying part of this trend, and like all trends, it will continue to escalate, is the current trajectory bodes very poorly for all of us, including the youth.
The arrest of a juvenile perpetrator is the closest we come to a consequence of their actions; however, the impact of the arrest is diluted by the legal process that follows.
While the judiciary believes their actions are compassionate and balanced, what they think is irrelevant as much as they won’t admit it. The key is what the perpetrators believe, being lectured doesn’t cut it.
The imperative is that the perpetrators understand that there are consequences for their illegal activities that are not palatable to them, irrespective of what the judiciary might consider appropriate.
What the judiciary might consider a consequence is useless if the perpetrator does not see it that way.
All the words directed at juveniles by the judiciary are just white noise to them, and anyway, their lawyer speaks for them, so in their eyes, it doesn’t impact them.
The youths consider walking out of Court, whether on bail or with a non-custodial sentence, as ‘I beat it again’. No matter the threats and lectures they are given during the process.
There is also the phenomenon promoted by older criminals that allows the youths to be recruited for crime; the nothing will happen if you are caught’ principle.
Many young people are aspirational to climb further up the criminal pecking order and share in the rewards, albeit ill-gotten, and this is a serious motivator.
The other motivator for youth is the influence (bragging rights) within their sphere, and that can become all-encompassing for younger people driving their lives. That there are no consequences for their behaviour has built their ethos.
In either of these two examples, the common denominator and drivers are the lack of consequences other than the risk of being arrested, and even that is diluted because the Courts do not fulfil their function as the community intends.
Some time ago, a high-profile person working in the youth space for a respected youth organisation reacted to our suggestion that as part of an accountability strategy, parents could, in consultation with the Police, have young people lose access to their mobile phones as part of the Police cautioning program for a period.
The response we received is a demonstration of how some with a socialist ideological bent view punishment or consequences as irrelevant and only promote more antisocial behaviour.
The person became very indignant at the suggestion and claimed that it was absolutely the wrong approach because all the young person would do was act out until they got it back.
Doh! That response proves the suspicion that many working in the youth space do not understand their role. Giving into the youth is the antithesis of effective youth management. Rewarding bad behaviour will never work.
The issues are monumental, but unless a new approach or an old one in part is re-introduced, then the consequences really do not bear thinking about.
The amendments proposed by the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Regulation of Personal Adult Use of Cannabis) Bill 2023 is a recipe for disaster disguised as promoting Human Rights.
Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Article 61 Single Convention of Narcotic Drugs and has an obligation to comply with that treaty. Human Rights are not an excuse for allowing any conduct that unreasonably harms anyone. That is why acts of violence and many other behaviours are prohibited by law. No society can exist in a state of anarchy.
The scientific evidence that cannabis use is harmful to people is irrefutable. A recent conversation with a person who has lived among habitual users of cannabis brought the following response, “They lose their social skills, become apathetic, their judgement is impaired, they find it difficult to concentrate and complete even simple tasks, they often are depressed, their memory is affected, and they are uninterested in anything but their next “fix”.
This lived experience is a graphic warning about the detrimental effects of cannabis use.
Authorising any household to grow up to six cannabis plants for personal use by people over eighteen years of age and expecting no adverse outcome for younger people is naivety bordering on lunacy. Where households have children under eighteen, it is certain that too many will be tempted to try what they see adults freely using. Escalation of young people using cannabis is a certainty. To deny this is stupidity.
Time, effort and money would be better spent on education programs, particularly for young people, to inform of the dangers of using cannabis and other illicit drugs.
Educating from an early age is a prerequisite to a lasting diminution in the use of illicit drugs that have become such a scourge on society. Public campaigns against drink driving and smoking tobacco have had real success.
The free use of cannabis will be reflected in the Road Toll and the proponents of this Bill will have blood on their hands.
Break The Needle article 10 is again a very interesting and innovative way the Canadians are exploring strategies to deal with their drug crisis, which is not very dissimilar to our own.
Going after the companies that have made huge profits from promoting opioids is a very smart way, if successful, to fund the rehabilitation of addicts.
It is important that the Canadian Supreme Court has paved the way for all States of Canada and the Canadian federal parliament to join together in a class action against the parasitical companies at the alleged heart of the opioid crisis.
Our governments must keep a very close eye on developments and start to formulate the necessary legislation to allow a similar action in Australia.
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that a first-of-its-kind, nationwide class action lawsuit could proceed against 49 companies alleged to have played a role in Canada’s opioid crisis.
The lawsuit, which B.C. has already launched, seeks to recover some of the health-care costs governments have incurred since 1996 in responding to the drug crisis.
The crisis has claimed more than 47,000 lives nationwide in the last eight years alone.
“I am pleased by the Supreme Court decision affirming our right to hold pharmaceutical companies to account,” the federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks said in a post on social media platform X following the judgment.
“Canada intends to join this suit should it be certified,” the post said, referring to the process where a court determines whether a class-action lawsuit can proceed.
“We’ve taken action to crack down on the predatory practices of the pharmaceutical industry — and we won’t stop now,” Saks wrote.
That provision enables B.C. to file lawsuits on other governments’ behalf.
Four of the 49 companies named in the class action — Sanis Health Inc., Shoppers Drug Mart Inc., Sandoz Canada Inc., and McKesson Canada Corporation — argued the provision was an unconstitutional overreach, violating territorial limits on provinces’ legislative power and undermining the sovereignty of other governments.
In a 6-1 decision, Canada’s highest court dismissed the companies’ appeal.
“National class actions, and in particular multi-Crown class actions, ensure that justice is not blocked by provincial borders,” Justice Andromache Karakatsanis wrote for the majority.
“The opioid epidemic is a stark example of a crisis that should attract cooperation and comity,” she wrote.
The court also said B.C.’s legislation respects provinces’ sovereignty because they retain the option “to opt out and go it alone.”
However, no province has exercised this option. All 10 provinces and three territories have chosen to join B.C.’s lawsuit. In 2022, the B.C. revised its legislation to permit the federal government to join its lawsuit as well, but it has not yet done so.
The court noted in its decision that some smaller jurisdictions would be unlikely to bring lawsuits if they were required to do so alone.
“As the Attorneys General for the Northwest Territories and Prince Edward Island point out, the existence of this choice [of joining the nationwide lawsuit] may be the only way that smaller jurisdictions could achieve recovery,” Karakatsanis wrote.
In a further show of solidarity, most Canadian provinces and territories have passed their own opioid-recovery laws modelled after B.C.’s legislation. These include provisions similar to the one challenged in this case.
The court noted that B.C.’s legislation is modelled on the province’s Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act — legislation B.C. has used to sue tobacco companies for costs associated with tobacco-related harms. However, that legislation does not contain a provision comparable to the one in dispute in this case.
Some provincial governments — including B.C., Ontario and Quebec — have brought lawsuits against tobacco companies individually, while others have not commenced any litigation.
In the US, state, federal, municipal and tribal governments have pursued a similar unification strategy against pharmaceutical companies over that country’s opioid crisis. The Multidistrict Litigation process has resulted in more than $50-billion in settlements so far.
The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) has worked for many years in the area of Police PTSI.
In 2017, the CAA published a paper entitled ‘The Hub’, and although there was minimal interest at the time, we were pleased that this concept was embraced by others who are working to develop the idea more broadly for Police suffering as a result of their service to the community.
Although we have never lost focus on this critical issue, we have been working to develop other initiatives, and in this process, one of the most important contributions and one sadly overlooked has moved to reality: Research.
Our PTSI Team, headed by CAA Director retired Inspector John Thexton, supported by other CAA members, Psychologist Helen Johns and Chiropractor Dr Paul Kelly, have been liaising with Counselling Psychologist Olivia Keene, who is completing a PhD. Her research project is titled:
Olivia has been in contact with Victoria Police to have serving members participate and successfully went through the ethics process.
It is now critical to encourage as many current and former members as possible to undertake the programme.
The CAA and former police members Cleve Salmon and Dave Evans, who facilitate ‘The Journey Forward’, will now take the lead in promoting the opportunity for serving participants to ensure the quality of the research.
If you are interested and would like to access more information on this project, please complete the attached form, and contact will be made.
Register Your Interest
Alternatively, contact Olivia Keene, Counselling Psychologist and PhD Candidate at RMIT University, via email for further information and to participate:
The reports in the Herald Sun 24th November ‘24 about the escalation of violent crime by juveniles, some as young as ten, is a rude awakening for a Government that is by and large responsible.
We can expect platitudes and lame excuses, but action is improbable, and anything the Government does will skirt around the reality that they have made some major ‘faux pas in managing the youth issues.
First and foremost, the Bail Laws are a significant contributor.
The definition of insanity can be easily applied to the Victorian Government’s posture on youth crime matters.
‘Doing the same thing tomorrow and expecting a different result.’
How many of the brainiacs within the Government could have concluded that arresting a child for a crime and putting them immediately back into the same environment that caused them to offend in the first place was a brilliant idea? This is beyond reasonable comprehension.
Those responsible must be removed from their roles.
It is akin to saving a drowning child, only to throw them back in the water.
It looks eerily like the Government is focused on deliberately guiding our society towards a lawless state; we can only assume some misguided ideological plan to destroy the community fabric for an obscure reason has overtaken them, guiding them towards a catastrophe of violent crime we have never before been subject to.
The second and equal act of insanity was raising the age of criminal intent from ten to twelve years, so all the upcoming young thugs are taught crime has no consequences and they can be just like their older peers enjoying the criminal lifestyle.
This crime apprenticeship scheme must be reversed.
The major flaw in this initiative was that no thought was applied to what was to be done with the younger juveniles, as their path to criminality is well laid before they come into contact with the courts.
To make a start, the Government must undertake a ‘mea culpa’; although that concept would be foreign to them, they might wrest back some respect from the community.
There is no shame in admitting a mistake if it was done with the best intentions.
However, there is not only shame but damnation to know an error has been made and ignore it, particularly when the damage is wreaked not only on the community but also on the children the laws were supposed to protect.
There is a third flaw that contributes significantly to the crime tsunami of juveniles, perhaps more important than the others, and that is the performance, or lack thereof, of those in the Government employ (the Government’s own people) who are charged with delivering youth services.
We have seen multiple reports of this systemic failure of this Government’s function, with children who are put into care receiving nothing of the sort.
Poorly supervised and allowed to come and go as they please, no doubt to be told they are naughty, but get to keep their phones and their freedom, albeit their behaviour is outrageously dangerous to the community and themselves.
And finally, the role of the courts must not be overlooked. This lack of holding criminals to account, a concept apparently not applicable to children, can be sheeted home to the judiciary, who, by any measure, have failed in their role, particularly in relation to children.
It is the role of the courts to administer the law, not be social engineers—a social experiment by the courts that has been a miserable failure.
Placing a child in detention to protect the community and the child is in an environment the courts are not comfortable with; is not their prerogative. The Government is responsible for providing sufficient secure services for juveniles to support the Courts.
It would help if some accountability was applied to jurists.
This would not challenge the independence of the courts but may make the jurists more focused on their role and its effectiveness.
Rather than closing jails, which will incur huge ongoing costs to the State, why not convert them into juvenile facilities? After all, it is just a building; what happens inside makes it a jail or a juvenile facility.
All the contracts to operate jails slated for closure are in place and will cost a bomb to extricate from, so it makes real sense to modify rather than close them and the savings for the state will be substantial in real terms, both social and fiscal.
It won’t be long before our litigious community starts acting against the Government for the Government’s failure, resulting in the deaths and trauma inflicted by juveniles on their loved ones.
That could be a good thing, forcing the government to act.
Unfortunately, the only consequence will be a more significant financial burden on the community settling claims against the Government and the other social and financial imposts the juvenile problem imposes on all of us while the Government continues to ‘wash its hands’ of the problem, doing their ‘Pontius Pilate’ impersonation.
This headline most former and serving Police find very hard to accept, arguably a contradiction of our Police motto, ‘Tenez le droit’ or ‘Uphold the Right’.
How can the Force operate when some are unprepared to ‘Uphold the right’ by labelling their colleagues ‘Scabs’?
The Police Oath is also worth a read,
‘I [ insert name ] [ swear by Almighty God/do solemnly and sincerely affirm ] that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign as a police officer in Victoria in any capacity in which I may be appointed, promoted, or reduced to, without favour or affection, malice or ill-will for the period of [ insert period ] from this date, and until I am legally discharged, that I will see and cause the peace to be kept and preserved, and that I will prevent to the best of my power all offences, and that while I continue to be a police officer I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties legally imposed on me faithfully and according to law.’ [Victoria Police Act 2013, Schedule 2]
Interestingly, the Oath says nothing about exemptions for industrial action, and if industrial actions breach their Oath of Office, what consequences will be applied to members who engage in breaches? Have they renounced their allegiance to the Oath? With renouncing their Oath, how can they remain a ‘police officer in Victoria’?
Police turning on their own is also anathema in policing and unheard of, with the only likely loser the Police Association, or Police Union as it has now morphed into.
Allegations that the Police Association has moved too close to the government are born out in this dispute where the Association is generating angst against the Chief Commissioner, not the Government, who is responsible.
When the push for changed rostering arrangements to a four-day week with extended shift hours was rejected by the majority of Association members, the Association took the ‘Voice’ approach. Irrespective of how you vote, ‘we know best’, and that’s what we will pursue.
That approach is straight out of an ideology playbook.
The Police Association did not read the room well, and they are rushing to an outcome that may not be in the best interest of the community or the Force and, in particular, its members.
Unless the Police Association tempers its behaviour, the likelihood of a breakaway Association that will accept the will of its members cannot be discounted.
The word ‘ugly’ has been used to describe the current imbroglio in this industrial dispute, which can only be sheeted to one side.
Whoever is behind the attempt to destabilise the Police Force, they are succeeding, and the drivers may not all be within the Police ranks but outside with agendas that benefit them.
Identifying the external entities that would benefit from a damaged Force doesn’t take much imagination. It was very clever of the Government to allow the blame to be shifted from them to the Chief, but they are the ones responsible – they hold the purse strings.
The other part of this dispute that has become unacceptable is the attack on the Chief Commissioner.
Much of this dispute is beyond the control of the Chief and dictated mainly by budgets. The critics demanding that he resolve the matter are generally ignorant that the government is holding the reins, not the Chief; those reins are called the budget.
Regardless, the Chief has broader responsibilities than acquiescing to Union demands. He must operate a Police Force now and into the future, and if he doesn’t have the budget, it would be irresponsible for him to grant the Union’s demands.
We support the wage claim for the Police. They certainly deserve to be highly paid for the job they do; however, that high pay rate should not extend to those who are not on the frontline, and it has always been an anathema that some Police avoid the frontline but receive all the benefits of those protecting us. Although backroom jobs are essential, the operational function is the priority.
Rather than a general pay raise, reviewing and extending specific task allowances would be more equitable and provide a better chance of accommodating them within budget restraints.
The key will be implementing a narrow band of the term ‘Operational’ extending from Constable to Inspector but only applying to those staff who are actively ‘Operational’.
Supported by a well-managed Force Reserve, the organisation’s efficiency can be maintained and even improved within reasonable budget restraints.
Many will be disappointed that their non-operational role does not enjoy the pay scale of those on the front line.
However, a solution is available to all Police classified as non-operational: move to a frontline position.
As Victoria Police face the triple-edged sword of budget cuts, a dearth in recruiting, aggravated by a massive rise in the population, these colliding pressure points can inevitably hurt the most vulnerable in society with a systemic drop in police operational capacity.
Any hope of an improved visible police presence any time soon is forlorn.
There is also a temptation for the review announced by the Chief Commissioner to slash and burn.
That will translate into whenever there is a failure of police service delivery, like police not arriving when called, or your local police station is closed, the excuse will be ‘budget cuts’.
Although the excuse may be reasonable, if you’re hanging from a cliff by your fingernails, budget excuses won’t wash.
We have to hope and rely on the Chief Commissioner that his chosen team has the creative acuity to achieve objectives with innovation and creativeness that improves the organisation’s service whilst satisfying the competing pressures.
There is a direct correlation between a falling capability over many years and senior police leadership or lack thereof, and the current industrial imbroglio. All industrial disputes are not only about money and conditions but what also gains traction is a workforce that considers itself under siege because of poor leadership.
In the case of the Police, this is not something new or necessarily caused by the current administration but something that has not been addressed for over a quarter of a century by consecutive administrations that failed to identify the issue, ignored it or relegated it to the too-hard basket, hoping it will go away.
The unfortunate development of the corporate bubble and executives feeling they are elite are just some of the indicators of the current industrial impasse.
The Force review, now mooted, will create a temptation to amalgamate functions, particularly at the coal face. However, they have been tried before and failed the absolute ‘Service delivery’ test.
The focus must be on the senior administration, which has become effectively bloated, inefficient, and ineffective. Failing regularly to accept responsibility is a major concern pandering to the; ‘it’s all their fault, not ours; philosophy.’
This review will undoubtedly be the defining issue of Commissioner Patton’s tenure. He must get this one right.
The whole issue is not helped when Police executives do not appear to know the difference between ‘Service Delivery’ and ‘Service efficiency’, a fundamental and critical knowledge necessity.
This review will undoubtedly be the defining issue of Commissioner Patton’s tenure. He must get this one right.
‘Service delivery’ must always trump ‘Service efficiency’. The organisation’s being is to provide a service, in this case, policing. It is a management role to deliver efficiency in providing that service; however, if efficiency reduces the service, that is marked as a management failure.
The test to any change by this review must pass the ‘Service Delivery’ maxim.
Everybody interested in Policing must assist, whether current or former Police and the combined skills and support for the review is more likely to achieve a better outcome than obfuscation.
The CAA has, for some time, promoted the concept of establishing a Police reserve, which is not dissimilar to the way the military reserve is structured.
Any former member of the Force could apply, as well as some serving members where, due to circumstances, a full-time commitment is not feasible.
The former members of good character could apply to be re-employed in stations and other functions to relieve operational members back to the street.
The reserve members would be reinstated at their previous rank and renumerated in accordance with the current level for that rank/position.
Reserve members would not exercise line command but could advise junior members.
They could perform many functions, and their reinstatement as a particular class means they are again employed by VicPol and would automatically become sworn members unless they have chosen to abrogate their oath.
Reserve members would be employed in consultation with the applicant as many would not be interested in full-time employment but in an arrangement to fit in with their new lifestyle. This is best achieved by a ‘Positions available’ concept.
Serving members may be encouraged to join the Reserve to suit their situations rather than losing them altogether. Some members may need to work less than a five-day week, which they can achieve by transferring to the Reserve.
There is a myriad of other issues that need to be debated and resolved, but the force having the capacity to fill full-time vacant positions even with more than one reserve member and acknowledging that the Reserve members have capacity limitations, the alternative of just leaving the position vacant doesn’t help anybody, particularly the community. A Force Reserve is also cost-effective.
Above all else, the Force must resist the temptation to lower standards to attract more recruits.
This approach is short-sighted, and the negative impact will be felt for decades, where with the current thrust of the three-edged blade, we can only hope, it is short-lived, comparatively.
It is time for action to rein in the abuse of the Committal process in Victoria.
Therefore, with minimal disquiet, we welcome the changes proposed by the Government’s Attorney General Jaclyn Symes, as reported in the Herald Sun on the 29th of October.
Most of our concerns lay with the failure of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and these changes, increasing the Power of that Office, may be proven detrimental to the administration of Justice in this State.
The acknowledged dichotomy of the role of that Office in determining whether prosecutions should proceed through the Committal process or whether the matter should be dealt with as a direct presentment to a Higher Court for trial seems never to be based on pragmaticism, which should be the core of the decision-making process.
The activities and performance of the Director of Public Prosecutions have never been far from controversy and, on occasion, have been operating not in the best interest of the administration of Law in this State—a view caused by a void in the rationale of the decision, accountability.
Examples where the DPP’s Office has made questionable decisions that would seem not to be in the best interest of Justice include,
The travel rorts of two politicians.
The decisions around the Pell matter.
Any number of matters associated with the Lawer X fiasco.
Decisions relating to the Red Shirts rort, and
Aspects of the COVID Hotel Quarantine fiasco resulted in 768 deaths and 18,000 infections.
In these matters, the lack of anybody being held to account before the law, with one exception, the Pell matter, where the High Court determined that the actions of the office of the DPP had perpetrated a grave injustice, raises the suspicion that the DPP’s Office is exercising bias.
In the Pell matter, the architects of this injustice should have been held to account before the same law they attempted to manipulate for their purposes.
Another common denominator has been the conga line of key players responsible for these debacles being promoted to higher office. A cynic may argue that you need to make a mess of what you are responsible for to get ahead, ending up with people promoted to the level of incompetence.
It is no wonder that many in high office in this state were promoted despite their apparent failures and are now responsible for guiding Victoria, by any measure, into decline.
A brave and welcome change where the DPP was required to give a reason for decisions not to prosecute would go a long way to improve the accountability of that Office. That would ensure the decision is based on the Law, not some other influence.
The Judiciary are required to provide reasons for decisions, why not the DPP, as letting the light in avoids misconceptions of the office’s function.
The publication of decisions and reasons does not hamper the independence of the Courts, so it would not hamper the independence of the DPP.
The Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) also called for Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions to take charge of more matters earlier and for police to take a back seat in prosecuting indictable offences.
For the DDP’s Office to play a more significant role, taking charge of criminal cases earlier is a retrograde step that will open up the legal system to corruption, as placing too much power in one entity inevitably creates, particularly if that entity is not accountable.
The idiom of ‘power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’ will be the inevitable outcome.
Moving from a preliminary advisory role to ‘taking charge’ is blatantly an attempted power grab and is of great concern. There appears to be no boundary to what the ‘take over’ may mean, which is very dangerous.
There has been a tendency in many serious matters to involve the DPP’s Office very early in the investigation, which makes us wonder to what end. Is that an abdication by investigators of responsibility?
It is a question of the risk to the impartiality of the investigation process that is a bother.
This is moving the role of the DPP lawyers from advisers to taking charge, which will hurt law enforcement, not enhance it. Investigators are being led to capitulation of their accountability to the Chief Commissioner in favour of the bureaucrats.
What is often conveniently overlooked in this issue is the role of the ‘Hand Up Brief’ introduced in 2009 by the Criminal Procedures Amendment Bill, and much of the media focus of that time argued that the Hand Up Briefs could eventually eliminate committal proceedings. But that would adversely impact the employment of Lawyers, so nothing was ever done.
The DPP’s office has always had the option of a Direct Presentment, but it is rarely used, and there appears to be no legal reason other than the adverse impact on Lawyer’s employment.
Removing Committals will not adversely impact the defendant’s right to a fair trial; however, it will make the legal system more efficient, reducing time served for prisoners on remand who we must remember have not been convicted of the offence with which they have been charged and the unacceptable delays in administering justice through the Courts for victims seeking closure on criminal matters. These delays are not a few weeks but can be years.
The idiom of ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ is very apt.
Ironically, this call from the Victorian Law Reform Commission in the Herald Sun on the 31st of October has drawn a somewhat predictable response from the Victorian Bar Council, ‘Victorian Bar warns against Victorian legal system overhaul’ is its own goal as their response in favour of the retention of this archaic legal practise exposes their bias in protecting the ‘status quo’ and Lawyers hip pocket.
Data from the Law Reform Commission website solidly supports what we all know: that the Committals process has well-passed its use-by date. And for the well-being of our legal system, it must be disposed to a safe place in history.
3.4 Each year, around 3000 criminal cases commence in the committal stream of the Magistrates’ Court and pass through some or all parts of a committal proceeding.[237]
3.5 Of these cases, roughly:
30 per cent are heard and determined summarily in the Magistrates’ Court.
A case can only be determined summarily if all indictable charges are withdrawn or discharged and a magistrate grants an application for summary jurisdiction, which, if granted, means the case will be determined according to the procedure outlined in the Criminal Procedure Act 2009
30 per cent are committed to the County Court for sentence following a guilty plea.
30 per cent are committed to the County Court for trial, following a plea of not guilty,
four per cent are committed to the Supreme Court. Of the cases committed to the Supreme Court, approximately 14 per cent are committed for sentence following a plea of guilty.
With 900 cases dealt with by Magistrates, which could be achieved administratively instead of a hearing, somewhere in the region of 2100 cases are committed to a higher Court or nearly 100% of all criminal committals are sent to the Higher Courts for determination.
On that matrix alone, what is the point of a committal process?
These findings, however, are an outstanding testament to the capabilities of Police investigators, the quality of their investigations, and the briefs they submit for prosecution.
There will also be some credit claimed by the prosecutors of the DPP’s Office; however, the best prosecutor cannot’ turn a purse back into a pig’s ear’, no matter how clever.
The role of the DPP should be to assess the validity of evidence presented to them by trained investigators – the Police.
A significant problem with Law reform is that the future employment advantages of Lawyers are foremost in any decision. The VLRC risks, in part, putting ‘the fox in charge of the hen house’ as the Victorian Bar Council confirms.
With approximately 3000 criminal cases to go through some form of committal proceeding each year in Victorian magistrate’s courts. Eliminating committals will save the state millions of dollars that could be directed to expanding the higher courts to improve justice overall by radically speeding up the administration of law.
The role of the DPP should be to assess the validity of evidence presented to them by trained investigators. If the Law Reform Commission has its way, it won’t be long before the DPP does investigations, which is the next logical step, and the police will be relieved of the task -. Rue the day.
The Chief Commissioner launched a force-wide review in late October ’24 to consider redundancies of hundreds of non-critical roles and the potential amalgamation of command divisions.
This review, motivated by the necessity to reign in the cost of Policing this State, is welcome news for not only that reason but also to reduce the burdening excesses of a bloated command and senior ranks and the proliferation of non-critical activities that have evolved, drawing police from their primary function of maintaining law and order.
The CAA has long argued that the structure of the executive branch of Victoria Police was not serving the organisation well.
Starting over a decade ago, the removal of two senior ranks below the Command level and the explosion of executive positions took off and became the norm.
The ranks of Commander, Assistant Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner have had their span of control and functions seriously depleted by the vast growth in their numbers, with each new appointment carving out relevance. That relevance comes with support staff and resources, and they are drawn down at the expense of frontline policing.
Each of these positions costs the State and the police budget millions of dollars in recurring expenditure for no greater outcomes from the organisation as the crime rate attests.
The inefficiency of this approach is evident in the decision-making process within the organisation.
As part of the ‘relevance carving’ of these executives, the decision-making within the organisation is drawn up to fill the allotted purpose of the new positions.
That adds to inefficiency in the command-and-control process. Decisions originally made at a lower level, much closer to where the impact is felt, are being drawn up to make some of these appointments relevant or given purpose.
Not only is this inefficiency writ large, but it also has a deleterious impact on those at the coal face trying to make policing work, only to find that they have to spend much of their time working out who the issue should be addressed when they used to be able to resolve it at their level.
This whole process has a very ‘Weeties packet’ feel about it, where the appointments over this period are akin to drawing the lucky coupon from the Weeties packet rather than demonstrating management and leadership capability.
Many may argue that the Police should not have their budgets impacted because of the adverse impact that will have on the community; however, if conducted with vigour and integrity, this review will attain a long overdue clean-out, achieving greater efficiency and building overall force morale, and in turn, improve operational performance.
There is, however, a significant problem that will be very challenging for the reviewers: the willingness of many police to give up their 9-5 positions, which attracts all the financial benefits available to police on the front line without the inconvenience of shift work or the inherent dangers of front-line policing.
In an address some time ago, the Chief Commissioner highlighted that most new Police Recruits lasted about four years on the street before seeking a non-operational position.
This phenomenon is very alarming and, in essence, puts the vast majority of police on the street who are relevantly in-experienced, where the most experienced must be there to service the public and nurture the newbies for policing effectiveness.
After just four years, a Police member who is dedicated and works hard may, with some luck, have completed a third of the journey to being an influential police member.
Four years of service is barely out of apprenticeship compared to many other trades and professions. This period should be designated post-probation, with some restrictions not applied to police who have served longer.
Part of this review must look at this issue and restructure the system. Members of less than six years’ service should only be relocated from their initial appointed position at the discretion of the Chief Commissioner.
Essential to maintain and improve service delivery, the development of a Police Reserve can be a cost-effective way of improving Police productivity while improving the Police culture, which, for several reasons, has been in decline for some considerable time.
The CAA will shortly publish a paper describing what a Police Reserve might look like.
In a new documentary, Port Coquitlam, teens describe how safer supply drugs are diverted to the streets, contributing to youth drug use.
CAA comment;
Victoria is inching towards the concept of ‘Safer Supply’ for drug users supposedly aimed at reducing the harm of the illicit drug trade, however as Canada is experiencing this strategy is a failure as it promotes drug use, particularly among teenager’s hood winked by the ‘Safer’ reference in the strategy – no drugs are safe.
There is pattern developing where governments are blind to the consequences of fashionable strategies when they are just playing into the hands of the drug cartels by promoting ‘Safe’ as a part of the illicit products.
There is little doubt that every drug pusher in the country can leverage off the Government ‘Safer supply’ mantra as a means of encouraging vulnerable young people to experiment.
The Video ‘The invisible Girls’ should be compulsory viewing for every politician in this State to ensure we do not follow any further the Canadian error that costs young people their lives and helps promote illicit drug use.
Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills meant for safer supply, but readily available on the streets.
“Multiple people walking up the street, down the street, saying ‘dillies, dillies,’ and that’s how you get them,” Madison said, referring to dealers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Madison says she could get pills for $1.25 each, when purchased directly from someone receiving the drugs through safer supply — a provincial program that provides drug users with prescribed opioids. Madison would typically buy a whole bottle to last a week.
But as her tolerance grew, so did her addiction, leading her to try fentanyl.
“The dillies weren’t hitting me anymore … I tried [fentanyl] and instantly I just melted,” she said.
Kamilah Sword, Madison’s best friend, was just 14 when she died of an overdose on Aug. 20, 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill dispensed through safer supply.
Madison, along with Kamilah’s father, Gregory Sword, are among the Port Coquitlam, B.C., residents featured in a documentary by journalist Adam Zivo. The film uncovers how safer supply drugs — intended as a harm reduction measure — contribute to harm among youth by being highly accessible, addictive and dangerous.
Through emotional interviews with teens and their families, the film links these drugs to overdose deaths and explores how they can act as a gateway to stronger substances like fentanyl.
‘Not a myth’
Some last names are omitted to respect the victims’ desire for privacy.
Safer supply aims to reduce overdose deaths by providing individuals with substance use disorders access to pharmaceutical-grade alternatives, such as hydromorphone.
But some policy experts, health officials and journalists are concerned these drugs are being diverted onto the streets — particularly hydromorphone, which is often sold under the brand name Dilaudid and nicknamed “dillies.”
Zivo, the film’s director, points out the disinformation surrounding safer supply diversion, highlighting that some drug legalization activists downplay the issue of diversion.
In 2023, B.C.’s then-chief coroner Lisa Lapointe dismissed claims that individuals were collecting their safer supply medications and selling them to youth, thereby creating new opioid dependencies and contributing to overdose deaths. She labeled such claims an “urban myth.”
In the film, Madison describes how teen substance users would occasionally accompany people enrolled in the safer supply program to the pharmacy, where they would fill their prescriptions and then sell the drugs to the teens.
“It’s not a myth, because my best friend died from it,” she says in the film.
Fiona Wilson, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department, testified on April 15 to the House of Commons health committee studying Canada’s opioid crisis that about 50 per cent of hydromorphone seizures by police are linked to safer supply.
Deputy Chief of the Vancouver Police Department, Fiona Wilson, testified on April 15 during the House of Commons ‘Opioid Epidemic and Toxic Drug Crisis in Canada’ health committee meeting.
Additionally, Ottawa Police Sergeant Paul Stam previously confirmed to Canadian Affairs that similar reports of diverted safer supply drugs have been observed in Ottawa.
“Hopefully, by giving these victims a platform and bringing their stories to life, the film can impress upon Canadians the urgent need for reform,” Zivo told Canadian Affairs.
‘Creating addicts’
The teens featured in the film share their experiences with the addictive nature of dillies.
“After doing them for like a month, it felt like I needed them everyday,” says Amelie North, one teen featured in the documentary. “I felt like I couldn’t stand being alive without being on dillies.”
Madison explains how tolerance builds quickly. “You just keep doing them until it’s not enough at all.”
Madison started using fentanyl at the age of 12, leading to a near-fatal overdose after just one hit at a SkyTrain station. “It took five Narcan kits to save my life,” she says in the film.
Many of her friends use dillies or have tried fentanyl, she says. She estimates half the students at her school do.
“Government-supplied hydromorphone is a dangerous domino in the cascade of an addict’s downward spiral to ever more risky behaviour,” said Madison’s mother, Beth, to Canadian Affairs.
“The safe drug supply is creating addicts, not helping addicts,” Denise Fenske, North’s mother, told Canadian Affairs.
“I’m not sure when politicians talk about all the beds they have opened up for youth with drug or alcohol problems, where they actually are and how do we access them?”
Sword, Kamilah’s father, expressed his concern in an email to Canadian Affairs. “I want the people [watching the film] to understand how easy this drug is to get for the kids and how many kids it is affecting, the pain it causes the loved ones, [with] no answers or help for them.”
Screenshot: Dr. Matthew Orde reviewing Kamilah Sword’s toxicology report during his interview for the filming of ‘Government Heroin 2: The Invisible Girls’ in March 2024.
Autopsy
Kamilah’s death raises further concerns.
According to Dr. Matthew Orde, a forensic pathologist featured in the film, Kamilah’s toxicology report revealed a mix of depressants and stimulants, including flualprazolam (a benzo), benzoylecgonine (a cocaine byproduct), MDMA and hydromorphone.
Orde criticizes the BC Coroners Service for not following best practices by focusing solely on cardiac arrhythmia caused by cocaine and MDMA, while overlooking the potential role of benzos and hydromorphone.
Orde notes that in complex poly-drug deaths, an autopsy is typically performed to determine the cause more accurately. He says he was shocked that Kamilah’s case did not receive this level of investigation.
B.C. has one of the lowest autopsy rates in Canada.
Zivo told Canadian Affairs he thinks a public inquiry into Kamilah’s case and other youth deaths involving hydromorphone since 2020 is needed to assess if the province is accurately reporting the harms of safer supply.
“That just angers me that our coroners did not do what most of Canada would have done,” Sword told Canadian Affairs.
“It also makes me question why they didn’t do an autopsy, what is our so-called government hiding?”
If the media reports are accurate, Herald Sun 3rd of October 2024, VicPol must be hugely embarrassed or tone deaf.
The report quoted a Police spokesperson as saying,
“The end of the financial year is traditionally a time when police choose to retire but this year’s total of 261 who left the organisation in July and August is well up on the 220 of the same period last year.”
The statement itself has no problems, but what is incredible is that the issue of a drop in police numbers in the set time frame is ‘traditional’, so the Force knows it’s going to happen, and given the other figures, it seems highly improbable that the Force has been able to manage this phenomenon.
Hiring extra professionals to help with the backlog of Police applicants is at best, a band-aid and any impact on reducing the backlog and training these applicants will not yield meaningful results for over twelve months.
However, the problem of a lack of Police and the adverse impact on the community is here, and now, waiting twelve months for an uptick in the ability of the Force to respond adequately to community needs is unacceptable.
Victoria Police should explain their breakdown in service delivery to the victims, who police have failed.
Given that the staffing level peaks and troughs are a known factor the failure in this staffing area is best described by the idiom.
“Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”
-Often incorrectly attributed to Einstein
For a number of years, the solution, in part, has been available but apparently never really properly considered , most probably because of misconceptions about the vast number of former police members’ attitudes to policing, which a very few loud naysayers promulgate.
Retirement – “the ability to do what you want because you want to, not because you have to”.
The vast majority of former police are very proud of their Police service and the values of policing. While the former Police, by Legislation, are no longer Sworn members, the vast majority have never denounced their oath but continue to honour it.
Contrary to perceptions, there are literally thousands of former police who, with little training, could augment the Force staffing demands to flatten out the peaks and troughs. And they are not all old; substantial numbers left their police career to raise a family and for other personal reasons whose circumstances may have changed.
The recent survey in support of a former member, Dr Ray Shuey’s integrity ‘bells the cat’. The myriad of comments made during the survey by former members should be compulsory reading for anybody in the command structure who doubts how much integrity is valued by former Police and the community.
There are hundreds of veterans who could be a valuable resource if used properly.
Many names on the list remind us all that VicPol was so highly thought of in times past as the preeminent Police Force in Australia that many members were encouraged to leave for other Policing agencies in Australia, with some attracted to overseas Law enforcement.
It is noteworthy that when VicPol was at its peak, the incidents of PTSD were markedly lower, bordering on rare. Make of that as you will.
With the right incentives, these retired members of all ranks could affect relief for front-line police of a raft of duties that do not require physical prowess, but their experience and life skills, plus a stellar police career, equip them well to backfill vacancies, particularly at stations.
Their bodies may be worn, but their mental acuity is a resource worth harvesting.
Equally, many non-operational positions could be filled by former police, relieving police of these duties to move to the operational function.
Former Police would generally not be looking to return to full-time work, but many would be interested in short-term casual arrangements that fit in with their new lifestyle.
The former Police, re-sworn, could carry out most inquiry/watchhouse functions and be a valuable mentor for some younger members.
A pragmatic evaluation of position functions could identify hundreds that could be tagged as suitable to be backfilled even to deal with relatively short-duration issues like the current Pro-Palestinian discourse or an emergency, natural or otherwise.
One substantially positive outcome from this approach is taking pressure off frontline police members and their managers trying to provide an effective Police function for the community, which can also reduce the impact of stress causing PTSI.
Sometimes, more maturity in a police environment can positively affect morale.
The recent push for a four-day week imbroglio might be resolved by providing serving members with the opportunity to move to a Police Reserve where their personal situation or lifestyle can be accommodated. Why lose them completely?
Never uttered in the same breath are the policing numbers and the crime rate.
Closely examining crime trends may show that the number of operational police corresponds to the crime trends. An effective Police Reserve force will positively impact the crime rate by injecting a vast knowledge base of experience into the organisation and allowing more police back on the street.
Before formulating a view on this missive, we suggest you return to the above Idiom. If this is not the solution, offer a better one than Insanity.
It would be very interesting to know how many ex-members would consider returning to VicPol, even on a part-time basis, provided the conditions were appropriate.
The attached survey form is not a commitment but an expression of support for the concept of a Police Reserve.
Surprise, surprise, the State has lost control of juvenile offenders.
The crime Tsunami CAA predicted almost ten years ago is well and truly upon us; what we didn’t expect was that the government’s ineptitude would contribute to fuelling the severity of the tsunami.
A massive spike in criminality by juveniles has made this State arguably the most dangerous in which to live, with the safety and sanctity of our homes being eroded daily by rampaging out-of-control youths. Not to mention the attacks on businesses.
Our safe haven bolt hole has all but disappeared.
The oft-quoted line of ‘you can’t arrest your way out of this problem’ rings very true, and a government that tinkers around the edges in the crime space is unquestionably the cause.
Law enforcement can only do so much, and we know they are trying their hardest, but with limited police resources, inept, ineffective courts, and the failing of so-called professional support services, all come at a considerable expense to the policing of the rest of the community and even more egregious, a huge cost of the failed development of our youth into meaningful contributors to our society, a penalty so severe it fades other sanctions into paltriness.
The latest tinkering with bail laws will have little impact because the primary cause of this imbroglio is the Courts lacking accountability in their role and the poor performance of individual jurists who operate without answerability. The influence of woke ideologies is a significant culprit embraced by gullible jurists.
Just as the government touts its latest reforms to bail, the impact of lifting the age of criminal responsibility is yet to be fully realised.
To aggravate a dire situation, the government has announced closing many of the children’s courts.
That will push out even further the current wait for justice, making truth of the adage ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’. Denying justice hurts victims and perpetrators alike.
When coupled with the age adjustment, the closing of the courts is no more than a cost-saving exercise. A cynic may argue that this has always been the plan. Raise the age of criminal responsibility to reduce court traffic and then shut the courts because they are inefficient – they are inefficient at administering the law, as the crime tsunami attests, and that should be the focus. Courts like any other entity has obligations for service delivery, how does making the courts less accessible improve the delivery of court services?
The combination of these two government actions means we will have more crime as there is no enforceable intervention in criminal behaviour of young children to prevent them from a further life of crime being ingrained in their psyche.
It has not gone unnoticed that all the advocates who promote the age of criminality changes are strong on the emotional rhetoric but near mute on the alternative process for managing out-of-control kids. Perhaps the advocates should talk sternly to the kids on the street to solve the problem. Good luck with that.
There is a lot of noise in the Northern Territory (NT), where the government has recently reversed the lifting of the age of criminal responsibility. Noise from advocates claim that little ten-year-olds will end up in the infamous Don Dale youth centre.
Notably, the rest of the community made the noise to reverse this decision at the Ballot box. It’s funny how, on social issues, the advocates never accept they may be wrong. As remote as the Youth Centre option is, it would be a last resort to protect the community and the child.
Even with the NT crime rate amongst young perpetrators, the courts are the arbiters of punishment, so the chances of a child going to prison are remote.
But back to the crime issue in Victoria because it is at a critical stage.
The solutions, in no particular order, are;
Provide financial incentives for homeowners to improve security – physical barriers, not just CCTV, which record after the fact and are so prolific that they have little preventive value. Criminals, including kids, are inherently lazy, and if entering the house is more complex, they will be discouraged from trying.
Make the Courts and jurists accountable for performance. This does not impinge on the independence of the Judiciary but at least makes their performance effective against reasonable benchmarks.
Introduce a Police Reserve to release operationally competent police from non-operational roles to bolster front-line numbers, allowing for better and more effective proactive policing. Stopping crime before it starts.
Review the role and accountability of the Children’s Commission.
The current Commissioner’s CV exposes extensive and severe conflicts of interest at play to the degree that would make the appointee unable or unwilling to help young people without the influence of an ideological bent.
The silence of the Commissioner in the current crisis speaks volumes.
Liana Buchanan is the Principal Commissioner for Children and Young People
Liana Buchanan commenced as the Principal Commissioner for Children and Young People in April 2016. (Coincidently, not long before the CAA warned of this current crime Tsunami). She also sits as a part-time Commissioner of the Victorian Law Reform Commission.
Liana has a background in oversight and system reform for people experiencing disadvantage, with a strong focus on family violence and sexual assault. Before she was appointed Commissioner, her roles included the Executive Officer of the Federation of Community Legal Centres, where she led the peak body for Victoria’s 50 community legal centres, and the Director of the Office of Correctional Services Review, where she was responsible for monitoring Victoria’s corrections system. Liana has also held legal and policy positions with a social justice focus in a number of agencies, including the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission, Department of Justice, Office for the Status of Women (SA) and Women’s Legal Service (SA).
It seems Ms Buchaman is only a part-time Commissioner for Children and Young People, and with her career focus on social justice values, this conflict is absolutely counterintuitive to what this role should be about – protecting the young and vulnerable.
Instead of remaining silent, the Commissioner should provide leadership to resolve the problems inflicted on our youth.
It is an apt time for a root and branch reappraisal of the various functions and roles in the non-coal face operatives supposedly working to help police in this war, a reality that is approaching fast.
Police are being sent to fight a war without logistical, legislative or political support, and that is unconscionable, for the Police, victims and youths alike.
In Response to our late friend and colleague, Dr Ray Shuey’s expert witness report into the long-running saga of the Andrews’ collision with a boy on a bicycle, Andrews released the following statement:
“This so-called report was commissioned by lawyers on behalf of their clients who are seeking money through the courts by suing their former lawyers.”
“We are not a part
y to this legal action. We did nothing wrong. This matter has already been comprehensively and independently investigated and closed by Victoria Police and integrity agencies.”
“We will not dignify these appalling conspiracy theories by commenting further at this time.”
Andrews refers to the report by Ray and then immediately denigrates it and by implication Ray, as a “conspiracy theorist”.
The members of the Community Advocacy Alliance and Ray’s family, friends and former colleagues take great umbrage at the besmirching of the reputation of a former outstanding member of the Victoria Police and fine citizen who worked literally on his dying day in the interests of others.
The CAA has been assured that if we can gather one hundred expressions of support from people who knew Ray as a person of impeccable integrity, a major Melbourne newspaper will take up the cudgels publicly on Ray’s behalf.
We ask you to complete the support document, and if you are a member or former member of Victoria Police, we ask that you add your Registered Service Number.
Your support shall remain confidential.
In Support of Ray Shuey
For your chance to stand up for Ray Shuey, fill in the form below. Please provide your Victoria Police registered number if applicable if you are a member or former member.
Support Dr Ray Shuey
415 signatures = 83% of goal
0
500
To read Ray Shuey’s full report, click the button below:
The insatiable appetite for money by governments as much as the crooks has fuelled the tobacco wars, and new taxes proposed are only going to increase criminal participation in this lucrative Black Market, a market driven by demand that will only expand.
As criminal enterprises have developed a strong network to distribute their products due to government inaction, it is inevitable that items with high tax regimes or other restrictions imposed by regulations will become the target as criminals expand their wealth creation networks.
With announcements that the taxes on cigarettes are set to rise, as will the taxes on alcohol, the expansion of the current ‘Black Market’ is guaranteed.
What has happened?
Many of the players in the Tobacco Black market are, or were, heavily involved in the Drug trade, but they have found addicts are not a reliable or secure source of finance. Drug addicts are schemers, so income is challenging to secure, and intimidation doesn’t always work for desperate addicts.
The cost of distribution with many drugs passing through multiple dealers, each taking a cut, usually in the product, can work out expensive, hitting the bottom line of the primary players or financiers.
It is much easier to intimidate small business owners to sell illegal tobacco.
The potential for severe penalties for serious drug crimes also has the principals of criminal enterprises looking for safer havens to do (illegal) business. The risks, in many respects, outweigh the advantages. However, crooks, being crooks, are addicted to money and power, so any profitable enterprise is a target.
Law enforcement has an uphill battle to try to control this crime because of a lack of will on the part of successive governments that have historically tried to ignore the problems in the hope they would go away or at least not hurt their electoral fortunes.
The first real inkling that organised crime was moving to a black-marketing model was their move into the Gymnasium sector, where they could not only reap profits but also recruit the necessary enforcement muscle and provide a ready distribution point for illicit drugs. Moreover, this area was unregulated, giving them unfettered access.
By and large, they avoided the alcohol market as it is well regulated, and generally, the nightclub scene has been spared for the same reason. Gambling, although never far from the criminal minds, has not provided fertile opportunities on a large scale.
Inevitably, other vulnerable markets will soon be exploited, given that criminal enterprises have established a ‘retail mechanism’ to market their black-market wares.
Illicit products, literally sold out of a car boot, have insufficient scale to be worthwhile; however, working under the guise of a legitimate business can scale up the market size and develop a loyal following that can be exploited further.
Some prominent and not-so-obvious enterprises will, if not now, eventually attract the criminal element running the black market.
Obvious future targets.
Pharmaceutical products- compounded knock-offs being the most obvious, but there are many more.
Petrol – although regulated, there will be effort targeting the resource to exploit any weaknesses, loyalty cards being the most obvious.
Food consumables- already legitimate retailers are hit hard by criminals stealing their goods. With the growth of the criminal’s access to customers through their black-market retail outlets (tobacco stores), shop stealing is set to rise dramatically.
Feeding into this phenomenon is the rise in the age of criminal intent to twelve years, and recruiting children under twelve will escalate because they cannot be prosecuted. Many eight- to twelve-year-olds are well capable of shoplifting quality targeted products in retail stores and supermarkets to be sold on the black-market. When they get older, they become ideal users and or dealers to service the drug trade.
Electronic devices – as the cost increases in the Mobile phone market, this will drive many to seek (latest) cheaper alternatives, and the black market is somewhere to go. This will undercut the major phone industry players and avoid taxes like GST.
There are, however, many more opportunities than listed here, but constant vigilance to control the criminal trade needs a special focus.
Much black-market trading is initially driven by financial pressure on some community sectors, while huge profits attract others.
Although there is no disputing that this is a law enforcement issue, enforcement cannot be achieved without the government’s direct intervention to ensure that law enforcement has the tools to do its job.
Although much of the focus is on Policing as the lead agency, which is fair enough, it would be foolish to assume they can do it on their own, an unrealistic expectation.
The Courts have a role to play, as do the other government agencies as well as the legislators, and to have any chance of controlling, let alone removing, this scourge of society, there must be a master plan, and all agencies held to account for it’s implementation.
Given the current fiscal pressure on their budgets, one would expect governments to be very keen, so the financial argument is compelling.
But it is not only the government budgets; these costs hit every taxpayer.
The excise and other taxes on tobacco have, without question, driven the astronomical growth of the tobacco black market.
A pack of legal Marlboro cigarettes will cost close to $60. A similar packet of illicit tobacco can cost as little as $15. With the newly flagged increase in the coming months, they will be close to $100 per pack.
Based purely on a financial rationale, it would be of more significant economic benefit to governments if they could achieve the lion’s share of taxes at a lower rate as customers move back to legitimate businesses, with a much lower tax regime rather than the profits (taxes) going to the criminals.
The loss of GST revenue alone should be justification for the government to lift its game.
To achieve the most significant impact, without fanfare, the shock to some criminals for a radical price shift at extremely short notice will be enough to destroy many of their business models. Even the cost of a container of cigarettes is a big debt if their income stream is severely damaged without time to adjust. Many criminals are importing multiple containers, so the damage of being unable to move that stock will be extreme.
To try to minimise costs, the criminal hierarchy will be forced to come out from the protection of the shadows. Forcing them to expose themselves as they reduce underlings to prop up their bottom line. This will greatly help the Police to identify them.
The argument that constant price hikes through taxes would achieve a decline in nicotine consumption, benefiting the whole community and taking pressure off the health system, has been exposed in recent media as a myth.
There has been an easily argued rationale for increasing the price of cigarettes based on the health argument that the dearer the cigarettes, so reducing the number of people who can afford to smoke automatically follows a correlation between price rises and user decline.
However, nicotine in Melbourne wastewater has remained stable for the last decade. This contradicts the claims from governments and health groups that putting the price of cigarettes beyond the reach of the masses will reduce nicotine use. That has now been shown to be a myth.
If meaningful inroads to destroy the criminal enterprises, which are undoubtedly very large, are to be achieved, a coordinated effort is required, and marketing principles should be at the fore.
Police have been forced to divert even more resources away from protecting us by introducing a new initiative to proactively visit recidivist offenders in a desperate effort to reduce the worst offending.
While the police effort is commendable, as far as that goes, the move highlights the anomalies in the Justice system that police are required to do this. The police effort to manage the 362 recidivists is unlikely to be effective enough to make a huge difference, and although any success is of value, the cost-benefit will become questionable.
Remember that each of these recidivists is already in the Justice system to earn the tag, recidivist.
If the Justice system were doing its job, the Courts would have taken action to ensure the non-reoffending of these children and the risk to the safety of all of us, including the child, is alleviated.
In essence, our justice system is an abject failure.
Of course, everyone in that system will wring their hands and blame somebody else, but somebody must be accountable, or there will be no improvement. And while the Police are focused on the known recidivists, and we hope they have success, there is a new cohort of recidivists coming along to bolster the recidivist numbers as some are removed from the list.
The point is that turning their life around is a mammoth and largely wasted effort by the time a child has become a recidivist, as the crime statistics show.
Three things must occur if we want a solution.
Early intervention -the effort must be made before juveniles reach that problem stage because, for most that do, it is too late and,
Juvenile Sentencing Principles – must be reviewed and,
Courts accountability -The Courts must be held accountable for their failure if a child continues to offend.
Early intervention.
The cancellation of many of the Police proactive programs has contributed substantially to the current crime trends. A formal Police In schools Program instead of the current erratic approach, the regeneration of the Blue Light program so successful in all other States, and the highly successful Operation New Start must be reintroduced.
All of these programs were successful, so VicPol has to suck it up and redirect the energy they apply from ‘why not’ to ‘can do’.
Juvenile Sentencing Principles
The Juvenile sentencing principles are a root cause of the current crime problem and its continued escalation.
The principles make for an interesting read.
Rehabilitation is the principal consideration for sentencing children. Section 362(1) of the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (Vic) outlines the considerations that must be taken into account when sentencing a child:
the need to strengthen and preserve the relationship between the child and the child’s family
the desirability of allowing the child to live at home
the desirability of allowing the education, training or employment of the child to continue without interruption or disturbance
the need to minimise the stigma to the child resulting from a court decision
the suitability of the sentence to the child
if appropriate, ensure the child is aware of their need to take responsibility for any action that is against the law
if appropriate, the need to protect the community, or any person, from the violent or other wrongful acts of the child.
Rather than setting young people goals to improve their behaviour with breaches subject to disciplinary action, the whole concept of the sentencing is to create an unachievable nirvana state divorced from reality.
Central to the failure of these principles is the lack of care for the reoffending and, therefore, damage not only to the community but, in some respects, more importantly, the child.
Suppose a child who is a recidivist is stealing cars and driving recklessly. There have been ample instances where, by good luck rather than anything else, young children have avoided death or severe injury in stolen cars. In that case, they are as dangerous to themselves as the community, and for the Courts to not take action to prevent this is irresponsible. Should the unthinkable happen, you can bet the Courts won’t put their hands up for their failure.
These principles need revisiting.
Court accountability
We believe there would be a seismic shift in the management of juvenile offenders if the responsible Jurist were to be held accountable for the consequences of a child’s recidivism.
Jurists have the power to solve many of the problems by adhering to the principle that provides the solution.
‘if appropriate, the need to protect the community, or any person, from the violent or other wrongful acts of the child.’
However, the courts are pressured by the weight of the other principles to allow them to avoid their responsibility to the child and the community. This principle must be the primary one, requiring jurists to consider it their primary function, and then the other principles can be applied.
The current system is broken, and police should not be hampered by the failure of the courts to do their job; instead, they should be delivering the police service to all of us and applying resources to proactive early intervention.
It is well past time for the Police procedures at demonstrations to be reviewed before a police member is killed in the line of duty. While that death may be honourable, it will be a cold comfort to the member’s family and colleagues, and to know that it was avoidable will make it even more tragic.
The CAA has proposed the introduction of water cannons for crowd control in Victoria, predating COVID.
Demonstrators should go home with a wet tail rather than an injury from allegedly non-lethal bullets and or respiratory issues from chemical crowd control techniques, and the police have a better chance of going home uninjured.
But Government inaction has now seen many police injured in the latest disquiet.
There has been a pattern in the management of the police response to demonstrations over the last decade or so, and the greater the direct conflict between police and demonstrators, the greater the likelihood of injuries on both sides.
There has been a plethora of full-time special police units established to deal with public disorder and special response units in recent decades, these units have been established at the expense of police on the street where the community needs them.
Demonstrations are infrequent and generally of short duration, making it very difficult to justify all these full-time specialists. Especially when calling the Police to get help is so problematic, and the public gets all the usual excuses when there may be hundreds of police twiddling their thumbs between public disorder incidents.
Rather than all these full-time specialists and the resources that support them, police at the Coal Face, who volunteer, could be trained up and continue in their regular policing roles and called upon when needed. Keeping Police Stations Open and police cars on the road improves the overall police service.
The surfeit of ‘police anti-riot kits’ on display during these most recent demonstrations is unbelievable. Still, it has not saved over twenty police being injured thus far, and the demonstrations are ongoing.
We have no truck with the rabble currently wreaking havoc in our city, but the Police, again, are the proverbial punching bag. Police do not deserve to go to work to cop the disgusting treatment meted out by an unlawfully assembled mob.
It would not surprise us if, after the dust has settled, injured police members consider taking a class action with a massive damages suit.
All the risk to the Police could have been substantially mitigated if the Force and the Government had listened to the CAA and acquired a Water Cannon capability.
These vehicles are not cheap, so if cost is an issue, the resources could be shared with other states, as most demonstrations of note have a substantial lead-in time to allow for the vehicles to be moved to where they may be required.
The cost offset against the substantial reduction in the number of police required at a demonstration surely makes a sound business case.
Based on the cost of police for the latest demonstration at $30m, water cannons could reduce the police members’ commitments by 1/3 and would have saved $10m, sufficient to provide more than one water cannon with ongoing operating costs well offset from future demonstrations.
The bottom line is that the police would be placed at a lesser risk of not engaging with violent thugs physically. The crowds can be quickly moved on with minimal harm to police and the miscreants.
In Israel, it is reported that they regularly use water cannons with a novel variation. Dye is added to the water so they can identify perpetrators to round up later. Not a silly idea.
In a conversation with a former Police Commissioner, he was asked why the Water cannon in that state had been disposed of. He answered that the device was old, which was fair enough, but his other reason astounded us. It hadn’t been used in years.
Perhaps the fact that they had one meant that the cannon’s mere presence was a substantial deterrent.
We are also surprised that the Police Association has not been vocal on this point, given the lack of water cannon’s adverse impact on members.
There is little doubt demonstrators will start using chemical sprays and other weapons to counter the Police in the future; however, being drenched to the skin will dissuade many from their endeavours. If that doesn’t work, a water cannon can knock them off their feet.
Using water instead of firearms and chemical weapons for crowd control is a far more effective and humane way to control those bent on unlawful mob behaviour.
Having to go home after a demonstration saturated to the skin would be very uncomfortable indeed and likely discourage many from returning, no matter how dedicated they are to their cause.
That they may be covered in bright dye that is not easily removed would extend the deterrent effect dramatically as they try to resume their everyday lives, not to mention they would also be waiting for a knock on the door as police round up perpetrators post-event.
An alarming Headline in the Herald Sun on Wednesday, the 11th of September, ‘Crime Statistics Agency data shows a huge rise in teens breaking into homes’.
Usually, while the victims are present.
It is disturbing and infuriating because it could have been prevented.
The CAA was formed in 2015 on the basis that proactive policing projects had been cancelled, and we knew the community would pay the price. Unfortunately, our prophecy was accurate.
Our protestations over the last nine years have largely been ignored, so there is a degree of hubris to be proven right but anger that the advice was not acceded to.
Certainty, with the latest crime statistics showing an unacceptable increase in juvenile aggravated burglaries, the proof is unquestionable there has been a catastrophic failure in this State, and to continue to do what we have been doing for the last decade would be the height of stupidity.
It might be time for the powers that be to start listening to the CAA.
And while Victoria spends millions on Policing this issue, nobody is looking at the cause other than superficially. When the state leadership sees crime through a jaundiced view, they take us toward even more crime.
It is inevitable that this will ultimately lead to deaths.
Hang on; it already has led to three deaths at the hands of juveniles in a stolen car, stolen during a burglary.
Perhaps our Leadership is waiting for one or more of the juveniles to be killed before action is taken. The other deaths so far seem to be treated like collateral damage as there has been little reaction from the leadership, and certainly, no efforts to achieve change and protect the community.
This problem is killing innocent members of our community, and all we hear from the leadership of this State are ‘crickets’ or occasionally platitudes.
Presumed to be a police responsibility, and by and large it is, there are other significant players avoiding scrutiny and contributing to the upsurge in crime, making the police efforts ineffective in the reactive sense. However, the Force posture that changed to strongly favour a reactive philosophy trying to arrest their way out of problems, at the expense of the well-developed proactive approach, coincides with the increased crime rate of this cohort, so somebody needs to do some explaining because the proactive function of policing is failing. Still, police are not alone in that failure.
In particular, the Courts have failed our society drastically and our children significantly as they have been behind and deliberately obfuscated the laws to follow a woke agenda. We support the independence of the judiciary but not at the expense of the court’s failure to fulfil the fundamental function of protecting the community.
The media reports infinitum, where young perpetrators are persistently bailed with stern warnings that this is their ‘last chance’. So, the rhetoric from the ‘last chance’ bench continues as the child returns time and again for breaching bail conditions and committing other offences.
The whole resistance by the judiciary to putting children in detention, even for their good, has warped the courts from their duty to society.
The concept of incarceration of a juvenile is seen as repugnant. However, this view is based not on empirical data as to the effectiveness or otherwise of the juvenile detention system but a jaundiced view of the alleged draconian regime of detention not consistent with the facts.
It wasn’t that long ago that it was reported that Pizza and McDonald’s were bribing juveniles offending within the detention system to behave.
Correcting juvenile behaviour by rewarding misbehaviour is one of the most outrageous and incompetent management decisions ever made in this space. No wonder we are where we are.
For a period, the push within juvenile detention was to replicate as far as possible the home environment for juveniles to minimise the impact.
That theory is flawed and ineffective.
We cannot and should not shy away from accepting that anybody, including but mainly children, should be punished if they break the law, and the more serious the crime, the stronger the punishment. The scale and effectiveness of the sentence is the key.
This is imperative for juveniles as properly managed detention has a greater hope of turning a child’s life around.
So, detention should not be the last resort for the good of the child and the community.
The deterrent effect of returning to detention will alter developed anti-social and criminal behaviour. As we have argued, detention must not be long to be effective.
If there are failings in the management of the Juvenile Justice System, replace the management.
We can make these claims because the increase in Juvenile crime proves that the current approach has failed along with one of the main drivers, the social experiment ‘ Restorative Justice’, behind many of the current strategies.
The government has been forced to create a specific offence for bail breaches. Still, given the court’s record, there is every possibility that the courts will find a way to continue bailing juvenile offenders charged with this new crime. The courts could push back simply by failing to convict, adjourning the natter with ‘conditions’.
So, with the Courts feeding the problem, the police being hamstrung and either not willing or incapable of undertaking practical, proactive work and the plethora of so-called government bureaucrats and others in the ‘juvenile industry’ failing to achieve effective, measurable outcomes, there needs to be an urgent reset. The Courts would be a good place to start.
Underlying the Court’s failure is a perception that incarcerating young people is abhorrent; tell that to the victims.
What is desperately needed is not a series of inquiries and reviews but accountability from the highly paid executives who run the various components.
The government must establish an independent audit function so that the performance targets and outcomes of the various entities can be evaluated rigorously.
Essentially, the audit function can expose the ‘Yes Minister’ esque justifications trotted out by some executives.
Yes, a lack of leadership and accountability has got us where we are today, and the focus must turn a blow torch on the executives within the Law and Order cohort and demand that they resolve the issue- or, in other words, do their job.
Unfortunately, there is a shortage of leadership in this space; what is desperately needed is a cleanout and replacement of the current leadership stock with others who are employed on a performance-based arrangement.
Another insightful article from Break the Needle and highlights the folly of Harm Minimisation strategy again.
It does not take a visionary to conclude that Victoria is heading down the same path.
This harrowing story of the death of a fourteen-year-old girl from a drug overdose brings into stark relief the flaws that our lawmakers have allowed to permeate our society driven by flawed ideology.
The collision of the principles of harm minimisation and rights of parents over their children which destroys parental responsibility because they have none, according to the State.
This anomaly which conflicts with the age of criminal accountability must be addressed before Victorian children suffer the same fate as Kamilah Sword and the pain inflicted on her family.
By Alexandra Keeler
On Aug. 19, 2022, Kamilah Sword took a single hydromorphone pill, believing it to be safe. She overdosed and was found dead by her grandmother the next day. She was 14.
Kamilah believed the drug was safe — despite having bought it illicitly — because she was told it came from a government-run “safer supply” program, according to Kamillah’s best friend Grace Miller and her father.
“I’ll never get to see her get married, never have grandkids, never get to see her graduate,” said Kamilah’s father, Gregory Sword, lowering his chin to keep his voice steady.
“It’s a black hole in the heart that never heals.”
Sword faced significant challenges trying to get his daughter help during the year he was aware she was struggling with addiction. He blames British Columbia’s safer supply program and the province’s legal youth treatment framework for exacerbating his daughter’s challenges and ultimately contributing to her death.
“It’s a B.C. law — you cannot force a minor into rehab without their permission,” said Sword. “You cannot parent your kid between the ages of 12 and 18 without their consent.”
Sword is now pursuing legal action against the B.C. and federal governments and several health agencies, seeking accountability for what he views as systemic failures.
B.C.’s “Safe” supply program
B.C.’s prescribed safer supply program, which was first launched in 2020, is designed to reduce substance users’ reliance on dangerous street drugs. Users are prescribed hydromorphone — an opioid as potent as heroin — as an alternative to using potentially lethal street drugs.
However, participants in the program often sell their hydromorphone, in some cases to teenagers, to get money to buy stronger drugs like fentanyl.
According to Grace Miller, she and Kamilah would obtain hydromorphone — which is commonly referred to as Dilaudid or “dillies” — from a teenage friend who bought them in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The neighbourhood, which is the epicentre of Vancouver’s drug crisis, is a 30-minute SkyTrain ride from the teenagers’ home in Port Coquitlam.
Sword says he initially thought “dillies” referred to Dairy Queen’s Dilly Bars. “My daughter would ask me for $5, [and say], ‘Yeah, we’re going to Dairy Queen for a Dilly Bar.’ I had no idea.”
He says he only learned about hydromorphone after the coroner informed him that Kamilah had three substances in her system: cocaine, MDMA and hydromorphone.
“I had to start talking to people to figure out what [hydromorphone] was and where it was coming from.”
Sword is critical of B.C.’s safer supply program for being presented as safe and for lacking monitoring safeguards. “[Kamilah] knew where [the drugs] were coming from so she felt safe because her dealer would keep on telling her, ‘This is safe supply,’” Sword said.
In February, B.C. changed how it refers to the program from “prescribed safer supply” to “prescribed alternatives.”
CAA Comment – changing names doesn’t solve a problem but exacerbates it.
Grace says another problem with the program is the quantities of drugs being distributed.
“It would be a big difference if the prescriptions that they were giving out were dosed properly,” she said, noting addicts would typically sell bottles containing 14 pills, with pricing starting at $1 a pill.
Sword estimates his daughter struggled with addiction for about 18 to 24 months before her final, fatal overdose.
After Kamilah overdosed for the first time on Aug. 21, 2021, he tried to get her into treatment. A drug counsellor told him that, because she was over 12, she would need to verbally consent. Kamilah refused treatment.
B.C.’s Infants Act allows individuals aged 12 or older to consent to their own medical treatment if they understand the treatment and its implications. The province’s Mental Health Act requires minors aged 12 to 16 to consent to addiction or mental health treatment.
While parents can request involuntary admission for children under 16, a physician or nurse practitioner must first confirm the presence of a mental disorder that requires treatment. No law specifically addresses substance-use disorders in minors.
When Kamilah was admitted to the hospital on one occasion, she underwent a standard psychiatric evaluation and was quickly discharged — despite Sword’s protests.
Ontario also has a mental health law governing involuntary care. Similar to B.C., they permit involuntary care only where a minor has been diagnosed with a mental disorder.
By contrast, Alberta’s Protection of Children Abusing Drugs Act enables a parent or guardian to obtain a court order to place a child under 18 who is struggling with addiction into a secure facility for up to 15 days for detoxification, stabilization and assessment. Alberta is unique among the provinces and territories in permitting involuntary care of minors for substance-use issues.
CAA Comment – The CAA has advocated for a similar health-based regime to treat all illicit drug users of any age.
Grace, who also became addicted to opioids, says her recovery journey involved several failed attempts.
“I never thought I would have almost died so many times,” said Grace, who is now 16. “I never thought I would even touch drugs in my life.”
Grace’s mother Amanda (a pseudonym) faced similar struggles as Sword in trying to get help for her daughter. Amanda says she was repeatedly told nothing more could be done for Grace, because Grace would not consent to treatment.
“One time, [Grace] overdosed at home, and I had to Narcan her because she was dead in her bed,” Amanda said. “I told the paramedic, ‘Our system is broken.’ And she just said, ‘Yes, I know.’”
Yet Grace, who today has been sober for 10 months, would question whether she even had the capacity to consent to treatment when she was addicted to drugs.
Under B.C.’s Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act, an adult is only considered to have consented to health care if their consent is voluntary, informed, legitimately obtained and the individual is capable of making a decision about their care.
“Mentally able to give consent?” said Grace. “No, I was never really mentally there.”
System failure
Today, Sword is one of two plaintiffs leading a class-action lawsuit against several provincial and federal health authorities and organizations, including the B.C. Ministry of Health, Health Canada, Vancouver Coastal Health and Vancouver Island Health.
All four of these agencies declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing court proceedings.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 15 and is currently awaiting certification to proceed. It alleges the coroner initially identified safer supply drugs as a cause of Kamilah’s death, but later changed the report to omit this reference due to pressure from the province or for other unknown reasons.
It further alleges B.C. and Ottawa were aware that drugs prescribed under safer supply programs were being diverted as early as March 2021, but failed to monitor or control the drugs’ distribution. It points to a Health Canada report and data showing increased opioid-related problems from safer supply programs.
According to Amanda, Kamilah had wanted to overcome her addiction but B.C.’s system failed her.
“I had multiple conversations with Kamilah, and I know Kamilah wanted to get clean,” she says. “But she felt so stuck, like she couldn’t do it, and she felt guilty and ashamed.”
Grace, who battled addiction for four years, is relieved to be sober.
“I’ve never, ever been happier. I’ve never been healthier. It’s the best thing I’ve done for myself,” she said. “It’s just hard when you don’t have your best friend to do it with.”
CAA Comment. – When will illicit drug apologists ever learn?
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‘Ill-informed’
