YOUTH CRIME – MEA CULPA.
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.
