YOUTH CRISIS – A SOLUTION

by CAA | May 17, 2024 | Library, Youth

There are conga lines of so-called experts who rabidly try to bend ideology to point out what is wrong and who is to blame for the youth crisis. With few exceptions, they fail to put forward a solution. However, there is one guarantee: They believe it is not their fault, and the pants-shiners will continue to pontificate rubbish until authentic leadership evolves.

The CAA has long identified the problem as failing to engage with young people in a systematic and targeted way that can be measured. Failing to understand the young people’s perceptions of time, inconsistent messages, and threats of sanctions for bad behaviour that are never carried out exacerbate the problem.

Making excuses for criminal behaviour by children is the greatest crime inflicted on our children and is predominately the primary reason for the crime upsurge.

Although necessary, focusing on recidivist offenders is purely reactive and has the reverse effect on crime rates. Successful arrests have not dented the crime stats but perpetuated their escalation.

The most challenging function of policing is proactive policing; if we want to see meaningful crime reduction, proactive policing is the only practical option to guide a child from exploring criminality and, subsequently, drugs.

‘Criminality is a learnt behaviour, so the obverse can also be taught.’

As the CAA’s policy focuses on solutions rather than carping about the problem, we propose developing a holistic, coordinated approach to deal with it.

Our proposal will not be any ‘silver bullet’ approach, which is doomed to failure as the focus will inevitably target one sector, and any success in that sector is quickly voided because it fails to address the feeder cohort of miscreants.

Targeting all resources at the most visible recidivist offenders to curb their behaviour will continue to be a massive mistake as young people grow to fill the anti-social void created by any success against the recidivists.

There is no better example than the illicit drug trade, where locking up a dealer or intercepting drugs en route makes little difference as there is a line of hopefuls ready to fill the void. At the same time, we acknowledge that the Drug issue is, in part, a Health issue, but not exclusively, another mistake. Whether it is the health or the criminal sphere, action must be focused on the pre-addiction or recidivist stage; tackling the issue before it becomes a problem for the child and the community is the only hope for a solution; there are no other options.

Police cannot arrest their way out of the drug problem, no more than they can the juvenile one, as demonstrated over recent years as the problems grow.

The concept and value of proactive policing were identified and successfully implemented thirty-five years ago. It successfully reduced crime markedly and was discarded in 2006 by the then-Chief Commissioner, who did not understand the concept. Successive Chief Commissioners did not revive it, who saw arrests as the only solution. They continued the failed strategies of the time, even in the face of empirical evidence of the proactive programs’ effectiveness.

THE CAA PLAN

We plan to have a simple, multifaceted, coordinated approach in which young people are guided from pre-school to completion of their education, making them less likely to engage in criminal activity and, paradoxically, drugs.

The role of parents is critical; everybody blames them, but we need to engage them.

We believe it is essential that parents are at least armed with parenting skills rather than taking the current approach of ‘winging it’ and praying they have the skills to be effective.

Fortunately, the majority of parents get it right.

THE CODE

From day one of pre-school through the whole education process, every educational facility must establish a code of conduct that sets the required standards of behaviour that are then taught and enforced.

If parents have an issue with the code, then they can take their child to an alternate education facility with a code that is more to their liking.

Teachers must be empowered to deal with breaches without retribution from the Education Authorities or parents.  The Code will minimise this.

The penalties for breaches of the code must be flexible enough to cover whatever situation arises.  Being barred from the playground for a period or after-school detention could be examples of the consequences we envisage.  Other measures may be appropriate according to individual circumstances.

Parents and guardians must be informed that this code of conduct will be enforced.

PART 1 PRE-SCHOOL – parental training and exposing children to compliance/authority.

It has been claimed that the path to drug addiction starts by the time a child is six, which coincides with the child starting at primary school.

That logic would also equally apply to any antisocial behaviour and start to impact what will eventually be a failed education, a recognised driver of antisocial and criminal behaviour in a child.

Pre-school is the ideal time to start the project by educating the parents on child behavioural issues.

The role of parents is essential throughout this plan, including compulsory attendance at parent education sessions for preschooler parents delivered by a child behavioural psychologist.

It is critical to support preschool teachers with behavioural support for children and parents whom teachers identify as needing specialist support. As educators’ authority stops at the school gate, specialist Police must become involved, as the problem is most likely at home, not at school.

Police must become a part of the child’s school experience to support the development of the child’s behaviour. Building familiarity between the preschoolers and a police member is the building block for children to understand authority and reinforce the right and wrong concepts.

Establishing respect without coercion, promises, or threats is the key.

Central to the police role is the continuity of association with the children. The children learn that while the police are responsible for maintaining law and order, they are also people with whom a personal relationship can be developed.

Apart from the benefits to the child, having a good experience with the police role model, if reinforced, influences their behaviour in a positive way for a lifetime.

Spasmodic Police interaction during this time will not achieve the goals set; Police involvement must be consistent, predictable, and planned for the child. Simply taking a Police car to a school to impress the students is an absolute failure.

PART 2: PRIMARY EDUCATION -Following the preschool strategy, the Primary strategy introduces a scaled approach over that learning journey.

By the time a child moves to secondary school, they will have developed advanced social skills, an understanding of their responsibilities and the benefits of not breaking the law, and self-discipline skills to help them. Guiding children through this process is critical.

Additionally, parents who are given an understanding of dealing with prepubescent children are also better equipped to guide their children through this critical next stage of their lives.

Again, Police play a critical role in Primary schools, starting with relationship building with the younger children and direct involvement in the school community as a vital resource for the school and the school community.

The Police’s role in preventing crime through their presence cannot be overstated. Making schools a safe place where learning is nurtured is vital.

The Police role starts as an extension of the preschool strategy. Progressing through the preparatory stage, the police assist with school discipline, protect teachers, staff and students, and help develop a safe learning environment, which is critical to the effectiveness of any learning experience.

Improved academic achievements in a safe environment develop children’s confidence, which is essential for avoiding a life of crime.

It is in the later stage of the Primary years that the children’s mentor should introduce the drug issue, helping to prepare them to deal with exposure to drugs at the secondary level.

It’s a bit crazy waiting for them to face the drug issue ill-prepared without adequate skills; then successful resistance is less likely.

PART 3 SECONDARY EDUCATION—The introduction of Super Schools was seen as an opportunity to improve the education of young people, but putting 2-3 thousand children in one place has created a series of critical unintended consequences.

There have been incidents of bullying, intimidation, assaults on teachers and other violent behaviour. This creates an environment where students are exposed more easily to crime and illicit drugs. Drug dealers can hide in plain sight in the crowd. Teachers are more vulnerable to violence from students and parents, both within the school environment and within the community.

If you believe that drug dealers aren’t waiting for every influx of new children at a secondary school to ply their wares, you are naive. The dealer who will probably coerce your child into the drug scene is perhaps wearing a school uniform.

‘It would not be unreasonable to conclude that Australia’s significant downturn in academic achievement in world rankings can be attributed to the breakdown of school discipline.’

The impact of Super Schools directly impacts all their students’ capacity to learn, and students’ learning failures increase their propensity to be attracted to criminal behaviour and illicit drugs.

For this reason and others, a Police presence must be developed for each school.

Embedding Police at every secondary school will be a resource nightmare for VicPol, but it is the type of activity that will most positively impact the booming crime rate.

The police’s essential functions would be to,

• Ensure pupils go to school.( investigate truancy)
• Liaise with the courts and others to ensure any sanctions imposed on pupil miscreants have as little impact on their education as possible.
• Provide early intervention avenues for children displaying anti-social traits.
• Protect teachers and other staff.
• Protect children in the school environment from exposure to illicit drugs. Schools are fertile ground for drug syndicates to recruit users, couriers, and dealers.
• Investigate crimes committed against teachers, other staff, or students and deploy proactive strategies to protect them.
• Assist support services by mentoring the child to comply with specialist advice.

Police involved must retain their operational qualifications so that in case of an emergency, they can be withdrawn from the program in a declared emergency for operational deployment.

Drawing on the principles of the previously discontinued Police school program, because it worked, police in the school’s program must deliver a package with a core structure of ten themes, namely:

• the role of police in society;
• the legal system;
• rights, rules and responsibilities;
• consequences of our actions;
• keeping ourselves and others safe;
• drug and alcohol education;
• personal development;
• anti-bullying strategies;
• domestic violence avoidance;
• road safety.

These ten themes would closely interlink with the school curriculum, thus enhancing the program’s relevance to the school community and the learning of the young people concerned.

The training of specialist police for this program is not insignificant and needs to be tailored for each sector. It is not simply a matter of plonking a Police member in a school and assuming that will work; whilst anything is better than nothing, the current practice of spasmodic untrained police visiting schools from time to time has not produced any positive impact on the juvenile crime rate that we are aware of.

The CAA has advocated elsewhere the importance of developing a Police Reserve for retired members, which may augment the demand of operational members for these tasks, particularly at the lower levels.

While there is no doubt that threatening and assaulting teachers is unacceptable behaviour, having the potential of all students in a school or class compromised, adversely impacting their education, is unconscionable.

After all, this behaviour is not just kids misbehaving; it is criminal.

The role of police in preventing crime puts the responsibility squarely with the Chief Commissioner.

Any Chief Commissioner who believes police can arrest their way out of the problem has and will continue to fail by following the reactive approach without properly embracing the proactive function, which brings into question their intellectual acuity. Historically, a series of commissioners have failed that test, and we are now paying the price.

Reactive policing will always be necessary, but the proactive approach will reduce crime; the key is that they are both critical, but one can’t succeed without the other, the Yin and Yang of policing.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Another area of great concern for the community is Domestic violence or aggression, which may lead to violence not only impacting the warring parties but significantly their children.

How children of school age can survive the war at home and the war of bullying at school is a load that they cannot be expected to bear.

It is also probable that children who live in these households will develop a sense of normality in their parent’s behaviour as a defence mechanism to deal with the trauma.

This normalisation will tend to become a trait that the children may exhibit when they enter relationships later in life, so if we ever wanted to have a meaningful impact on domestic violence, then this initiative will go a long way in demonstrating to children that this and other sorts of aggressive behaviour are unacceptable.

DEALING WITH JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

Once a child enters the justice system, there is a reduced chance that their behaviour will be modified unless they want it to be. To alter their behaviour, they must learn that bad behaviour leads to undesirable consequences from a child’s perspective, but in most cases, they have to grow out of it.

The process starts when Police arrest and charge the youth with a criminal offence. Police have discretion, which is critical for the perpetrator’s future and whether they will be recidivists.

The younger the child with a propensity for crime receives an official warning, the better the chance of altering their behaviour.

Police discretion is exercised on any child over ten. They can receive a Police caution, be issued with a summons to Court, a court attendance notice, or be arrested and charged and, where appropriate, bailed. The last and least desirable for a child’s future is being remanded in custody, which is rarely applied.

RAISING THE AGE OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY.

Raising the age at which children can have criminal intent is an unnecessary step that will add to the problem, not assist in it.

This new philosophy means young children cannot be accountable for their actions and are incapable of committing a crime. Although their action still creates victims, it is beyond belief in these allegedly enlightened times that a child can be allowed to view their behaviour as acceptable and beyond consequences.

Ask the Victim of a home invasion what difference in the severity and impact on the family was eased by the perpetrator being underage. Having anybody standing over you in the middle of the night, the perpetrator’s age is entirely irrelevant.

‘The human body’s response to a penetrating knife does not alter by the age of the person delivering the thrust. The body doesn’t know how old the assailant is.’

What has been forgotten is that the Police caution the majority of the younger cohort before they end up in the Juvenile Justice system; these age changes kill that program not only to the disadvantage of the child but also to leave the parents in an unenviable position as to what to do next to help guide their child.

Raising the age for criminal responsibility to fourteen ‘hangs the parents out to dry.’

Police actively try to avoid feeding children into that system as they witness its failures firsthand. These changes will mean that the cautioning option will no longer be available to help divert young first offenders.

An argument often touted is that young children cannot develop criminal intent. However, the law, as it stands, does not allow a child to be charged criminally if they do not understand that the action was criminal. So, if that is the change’s intent, it is unnecessary.

‘Children between 10 and 14’

‘When a child between the ages of 10 and 14 is charged with an offence, the prosecution must show that he or she understood the act was a crime and that the behaviour was wrong’. 

INEFFECTIVE COURT SYSTEM,

Our antiquated court system needs fixing. With the courts held accountable for their effectiveness, they must bear much of the blame for the current crisis.

The only benefit of altering the age of accountability is a statistical one. It doesn’t help to divert kids from more crime but shows a decrease in the number of youth offenders charged; ‘smoke and mirrors.’

Nobody is interested in putting ten-year-olds, or for that matter any child, in detention unless it is necessary to protect the child or the community; however, having no consequences can be just as harmful to a child.

A properly developed home detention system is the answer, as it puts resourced parents back in charge of their children.

USE OF SECURITY BRACELETS ON JUVENILES.

With some imagination and the use of AI, an ankle bracelet can achieve substantial compliance with bail conditions and impose a penalty, such as home detention.

Much work must be done to develop a system for ring-fencing the child’s movements. This allows a child to attend school, sporting commitments, medical appointments, Court attendances, and other approved activities away from home.

HOME DETENTION- PARENTAL ROLE.

There has been much criticism of the parents’ role or lack thereof in managing their miscreant child. The reality is probably not necessarily a lack of will, but skills and a tendency of ‘the system’ to assume the parents cannot deal with an issue, so they are excluded.

Home detention managed by a tracking device will restore the parents to their roles and responsibilities when managing children on bail or as part of any sentence.

With some professional support, this process can achieve long-term compliance by the child, particularly when any breaches of conditions can extend the detention, and repeated non-compliance can ultimately lead to incarceration.

The key to this initiative is that the time for Home Detention must be carefully managed to ensure that the period or periods, depending on the circumstances, are not long; otherwise, the initiative’s potency will be diluted.

‘Putting an anti-bark collar on a dog only works until the dog becomes accustomed to it.’

The best results will initially be achieved over weeks, perhaps increasing sequentially depending on the youth’s compliance. Good compliance reduces home detention time or extends more freedoms to the ring-fence. Non-compliance or breaches reduce privileges, not by the parent but by the ring fence settings.

MEASURING SUCCESS.

The advantage of this plan, and we accept that it is still a skeleton, is that accurate effectiveness measurement can be achieved. Thus, it can be modified while in operation if required, ensuring the maximum beneficial result.

It also has the advantage of being built organically, from the ground up and developing as police training is achieved.

DRUGS

It would be naive to imagine, although they are kids we are talking about, that drugs do not play a significant role in the issue, both as users and participants in drug crime.

The lowering of the age of criminality will be exploited by the drug industry, using children as mules and in-time users. The drug industry will be very appreciative of the Government providing them with a supply of operatives exempt from prosecution, enabling a stable workforce for their industry. How is the community going to deal with the younger addicts this change will create?

Because children are exempted from prosecution, then access to intelligence is also severed, again protecting the cartels.

Whose side is the Government on, good or evil?

Like the Injecting room where the unintended consequences, the creation of a Drug dealers’ hub and the capacity for addicts to trial increased dosages, a facility that does not help addicts beat their addiction is counterintuitive.

How a government can be suckered or coerced into providing a significant hub for the illicit drug industry to the benefit of cartels is beyond reasonable comprehension.

Governments are empowered to create laws to protect the community, not empower the illegal drug trade.

A supply of mules, dealers and users will further reward the cartels, and the children attracted will not be able to be charged even if the trade permeates a school and exposes more children to drugs. The drug operators don’t care about age or long-term effects; their motivation is greed.

Has anybody given thought to how these underage mules, dealers and addicts might be managed?

CONCLUSION

Additional Police, Social Workers, and Child psychologists will be required, so the exercise is not cheap to plan and operate. However, it will be a lot more affordable than what we are currently facing: watching young lives being ruined, victims permanently damaged, and education standards continuing to erode, all due to a lack of action and, most importantly, leadership.

This proposal will result in substantial cost savings compared to the vast bricks-and-mortar investments mooted by the Queensland Children’s Commissioner Nationally.

Grown organically from the ground up, this proposal will be more effective if managed at a local level. It will be able to adjust to local needs and not be operated by a remote bureaucracy.

The target should be to develop the preschool sector first and then sequentially at the primary and secondary levels. That allows for effective management throughout the development stages.

Giving the community ownership will prevent it from becoming just another quango, for some to say – “Look what we have done.”

YOUTH CRIME, PREVENTION AND PROTECTION THE TENETS OF THE PROBLEM

by CAA | Mar 23, 2024 | Library, Youth

Almost everything published about youth crime revolves around dealing with young offenders.  While this is important, what is more important is preventing young people from offending in the first place.  Rehabilitation programs for young offenders are reactive, not proactive.  Until this basic truth is acknowledged, we will always be playing catch up in dealing with youth crime issues.

The CAA has recently published an article entitled, “CALL TO ACTION – YOUTH CRIME,” in which we outlined the need for a Police in Schools Program, such as the one introduced in Victoria in 1989 that ran until 2016, to teach young people the basic tenets of good citizenship.  A proven program that achieved excellent results in turning youngsters away from crime.

Although similar programs are implemented worldwide, Victoria has failed to re-introduce an effective version into schools in this State.

Part of the Victoria Police’s statutory function is Crime Prevention. Victoria Police Act 2013, Section 11, (c). It is incumbent on Victoria Police to take every possible step to stem the tide of crime, and this is particularly so in relation to Juvenile crime, which is out of control.

Early intervention, where it is apparent that young people are at risk of lapsing into a life of vice or crime, also needs to be a priority.

The provision for dealing with young people who were likely to lapse into a life of vice or crime was abolished in Victoria. This phrase appeared on some child welfare records and was a convenient term for one of the definitions of a neglected child. Specifically, it referred to a child who was at risk of falling into a career of vice or criminal behaviour.

Some people, like doctors, nurses, midwives, teachers, school principals and police officers, must tell the department if they believe a child is being harmed or at serious risk of harm.

The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) (Child Protection) must investigate every report. This can include speaking to the child, family members and other people involved with the family.

As each family’s situation is different the department may decide not to do anything, or they might get involved with the family for a short or long time.

Child protection

If anyone has formed a reasonable belief that a child has suffered or is likely to suffer significant harm as a result of abuse or neglect and their parent has not or is unlikely to protect them from harm, they can make a report to Child Protection.

Meeting the needs of children and making sure they are safe in the family is a shared responsibility between individuals, the family, the community and the government. When adults caring for children do not follow through with their responsibilities, are abusive or exploit their positions of power, then child protection is empowered to investigate the concerns and intervene to protect the child legally when required.

The Victorian Child Protection Service is specifically targeted to support those children and young people at risk of harm or where families are unable to protect them.

The main functions of Child Protection are to:

Investigate matters where it is alleged that a child is at risk of significant harm.

Refer children and families to services that assist in providing the ongoing safety and well-being of children.

Make applications to the Children’s Court if the child’s safety cannot be ensured within the family.

Administer protection orders granted by the Children’s Court.

During 2019-20, 174,700 (31 per 1,000) Australian children received child protection services (investigation, care and protection order and/or were in out-of-home care).  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were eight times as likely as non-Indigenous children to have received child protection services. Children from geographically remote areas were more likely to be the subject of substantiation or be in out-of-home care than those from major cities.  Over 5,300 children were reunified with family during 2019–20.  Sixty-seven per cent of children who received child protection services were repeat clients.  This figure alone shows that the system is not effective.

Overall, what seems to be sound policy and practice is clearly not working.

It is not working because all this, although expressed in proactive terms, is actually reactive, intervention occurring only when a problem already exists.

What is needed is proactive programs that prevent problems from arising.

When parents are failing in their responsibilities, the only resolution is through education, and school alone gives access to almost all children where they can be given guidance and life skills.

In terms of youth crime, a partnership between teachers and police is a proven formula that does make a difference.

Mentoring and Youth Support

A mentor who spends time helping a young person is invaluable.  They can help a young person with things, for example:

Schoolwork;

Coping with bullying;

Finding employment;

Strategies to stay safe;

Coping with peer pressure:

Avoiding alcohol and illicit drugs.

Youth inclusion and support panels made up of people like local youth or social workers to work with young people to make sure they get access to local services that will help them stay out of trouble.

Bail

The expanded factors in bail laws require the Courts to consider the potentially adverse effects of a child being held in custody.  Rather than reducing re-offending, research shows that placing children in a custodial environment increases the likelihood that they will reoffend. They are exposed to violence and negative peer groups, and displaced from family and education opportunities. Children leave custody with deteriorated mental health and an elevated risk of self-harm. The new considerations require a Court to confront the consequences of detaining a child – potential recidivism and harm to the child – which are factors that should not sit comfortably with most decision-makers.

However, the factors outlined above exist only when sensible, viable alternatives are not considered.

An alternative to custody in many cases is home detention where the child can, as a condition of bail, be required to stay at home with an exception of being able to attend school, which should be mandatory.

Compliance with such a condition can be achieved through the use of an electronic tracking device, which, in this age of technology, can be designed to look like an ordinary wristwatch to avoid any stigmatisation of the child.

A further condition of bail must be a prohibition of fraternising with any co-offenders to break the nexus of peer pressure.

Sentencing

The bail provisions set out above could equally be adopted as a sentencing option, thus avoiding the possibility of a child being further corrupted in a custodial situation.

Monitoring

The financial savings would be such that establishing a Monitoring Centre to keep track of young people on bail or under sentence would be a fraction of the costs of incarceration.

Recommendations

Immediately reintroduce a Police in Schools Program, such as the one introduced in Victoria in 1989 that ran until 2016, to teach young people the basic tenets of good citizenship.

Establish other proactive programs of interest to young people where they can express themselves safely and lawfully, be that through sport, music, art or anything else that is appropriate.

Establish mentoring and youth support panels.

Introduce bail practices as outlined in this article.

Adopt a sentencing regime that uses home detention in appropriate cases.

THE FALLIBILITY OF MISGUIDED IDEOLOGY

by CAA | Nov 19, 2023 | Library, Youth

Youth crime is the victim of ideology that is so blinkered as to fail to achieve its original goal.

In the late 1990’s to 2012 a formidable politician, Robert Hulls, championed a concept called Restorative Justice.

A concept, ironically given its devout following in Victoria’s Judicial fraternity, that has not exactly achieved worldwide acclaim or even acclaim to any great degree Nationally.

For all its warm-fuzzy ideological appeal, the concept remains just a theory, and we are paying the penalty of having our Justice system hijacked by a theory that, in practice, has failed, hence the lack of acclaim.

Look no further than the juvenile crime statistics over the last two decades to see the abject failure. This era was preceded by a Victoria Police Policy of proactive policing targeting young people and building bridges. A policy that worked.

The definition of Restorative Justice published by RMIT, is clearly an ideological joke gone disastrously wrong, and sane people should never have allowed it to permeate the justice system as it currently has.

Restorative justice is a theory of justice that focuses on the harm caused by crime and wrongdoing to people, relationships and communities.

It provides a framework for addressing and preventing harm that moves beyond punishment towards healing. As a practice, restorative justice processes most commonly bring together people affected by harm in a safe, structured and facilitated way, to talk about what happened, how they were impacted and how the harm can be repaired or addressed. 

https://cij.org.au/opencircle/what-is-restorative-justice

It is a fat lot of good having victims, sometimes of horrendous crimes, being confronted in a congenial environment with the perpetrator for ‘a healing’; ‘a healing for who’?

Healing the perpetrator does nothing for the poor Victim who not only has to suffer the consequences of the crime but is then called up for ‘a healing’, not for them, but for the perpetrator.

That this process would somehow reduce the likelihood of the perpetrator reoffending is an academic fantasy.

One major failing is this theoretical concept has been interpreted by the judiciary and others as a process to assist perpetrators and perhaps turn their lives around. The operative word is, perhaps, because, to those who know and understand the psyche of the young, it is highly unlikely to achieve the desired outcome.

Juvenile offenders know only one concept, and that is their personal advantage as they see it, and the impact on anybody else is immaterial.

When juveniles from a particular cohort are charged and convicted by a court, the perpetrator perceives only two options. If they walk from the court, they have beaten the charge, or they can be sent to prison, a badge of honour to be bragged about.

Lawyers and the Judiciary might as well save the energy from dissertations directed at a convicted juvenile perpetrator as they explain how wrong the actions are and that a diversion will be their ‘last chance’. Rhetoric without consequences, they have no doubt heard many times, making the threat useless.

So, no matter what might be said or recorded or otherwise by the Court, if the perpetrator walks from Court, their bragging rights herald, ‘I won’, and will be broadcast loudly amongst their peers. That has a knock-on effect of impunity from any consequences, emboldening others to commit crimes.

The Court’s focus on the individual perpetrator is important, but the Court has an obligation to the broader community, particularly other young people likely to offend.

That leaves us with a system that rewards, not punishes criminality, in the perpetrator’s mind’. Any deterrent effect is disastrously lost on any peers of the perpetrator as they can demonstrate that no matter what they do, nothing happens.

If reparation was enforced on the juveniles and or their family, it would at least be a tangible deterrent.

The best option to reduce juvenile crime is to prevent it by reintroducing proactive programs like,

• Blue Light Discos (Blue Light survives, but the discos have all but disappeared).
• The Police in Schools Program, which ran very successfully in Victoria from 1969 until 2006. (The current iteration is similar in name only; the very effective Curriculum-based version is no longer used.)
• Operation New Start was a program actively ensuring young people actually get to school.
• Derby Hill – a Blue Light resource used as a school camp. Local Police could spend time with their local children in a school camp orientated to Policing. The camp has been disposed of.

Early structured connection of police with juveniles pays high dividends in reducing offending. All of these programs had one remarkable similarity. When each was introduced, there was an immediate reduction in local juvenile crime.

Another option to reduce the frequency and severity of juvenile crime is incarceration, particularly for repeat offenders—understandable consequences for society and the juvenile.

Unfortunately, there is only one option to reduce the frequency and severity of juvenile crime, and that is incarceration—understandable consequences, not for society but for the juvenile.

Jail is not the place for young people; neither is it appropriate or in their best interest for them to rape,  rob and pillage society.

Shorter sentences will be the answer because time for young people moves extremely slowly, so a month or two with a generous good behaviour incentive would be more effective than any extended period to avoid the risk of institutionalisation and create a break in the nexus the juvenile has with their current peers.

Jail per se is not the problem; it is how this resource is used. Threats alone will never succeed, and the resource needs to be used more creatively and effectively.

After a relatively short period, the perpetrator’s peers will move on without the juvenile, a good outcome that gives the juvenile the chance to start again.

While jail should not be a holiday home, the discipline and proper management of juveniles will help them.

If the problem is perceived to be the jail, then fix the jail.

It’s their liberty that has to be sacrificed. A month without access to a mobile phone would be a great start on the road to a crime-free life.

In serious cases, it is the juvenile offender’s liberty that must be sacrificed to protect the Juvenile and the Victims.

The reduction starts with creative and effective pro-active programs to reduce crime in the first place and then pragmatic and effective management of perpetrators to guide them from their current path.

This will ultimately save lives, predominantly of the perpetrators. Crime can be a fatal endeavour.

ARE WE BARKING MAD OR JUST PLAIN STUPID?

by CAA | Jul 16, 2023 | Library, Youth

17th July 2023

Youth offending has been brought up again, this time by Chief Commissioner Shane Patton, who calls for exemptions to the impact of lifting the age of criminal responsibility from ten to thirteen.

However, this move from the Chief to fix an unrealistic situation created by the legislators will only complicate managing youth crime, making it more difficult for the police and potentially opening up opportunities for career-ending litigation should any police member break the new rules, even inadvertently.

It will not reduce criminality by this cohort but increase it, putting children and the community at further risk.

The changes rely on perceptions, not facts, and what may seem appropriate to police involved in an incident may well be rejected subsequently by a court. Who incidentally was not there when the incident occurred.

The process will become so complicated that police accoutrements (equipment carried by Police) will need to include a ‘Youth Criminal manual’ for each member to refer to.

“Stop the car chase, while I check the procedure; they may be children.”

The CAA has a long history of advocating for intervention at an earlier age to deter children from committing crimes, the proactive approach. We now accept that because of other factors outside the control of the police, the situation has deteriorated dramatically, and the impact on police resources is so severe by recidivist offenders, particularly in the youth cohort, reactive responses must be the priority until the situation stabilises.

We support and encourage the Chief Commissioner to redirect all proactive and support resources to the front line of youth crime. That includes all special interest groups within VicPol, irrespective of how important the people in these groups feel their work is, as well as suspending all training to free up training staff as well as students.

As the situation continues to deteriorate, a repose similar to a war footing must be adopted.

An influx of hundreds of extra police, their vehicles and other resources will lift dramatically the ability of Police to increase patrols.

This, however, cannot be used as a catalyst for police to absolve the function of Proactive policing permanently and must include a sunset clause.

The operation must have a monthly review of progress and, in the first instance, be for a period of six months.

The blame, however, for that deterioration must be placed squarely at the feet of the Judiciary. But as is often the case, the solution in part relies on the Police.

To succeed, the courts have to do their part, albeit they caused it.

The failure to rein in criminality amongst the youth is also not the fault of the pundit’s favourite whipping horse, their parents. Parents are effectively excluded from the Judicial process even if they are present.

The judiciary must accept the responsibility for the rising crime rate as the reins are in their hands, nobody else’s.

The judiciary is the final arbiter regarding the consequences a juvenile may face. Those consequences must be a consequence in the eyes of the juvenile, not the judiciary.

One thing is blatantly apparent; the youth do not respond well to the current raft of penalty options issued by the courts. The flaw is that the youths do not understand they are being punished; instead, they have been merely inconvenienced by going to court.

As soon as their case is finalised and they walk out of the court, in their minds, they have won, irrespective of what the Court says. They have bragging rights among their peers that they beat the charges, deterrent lost.

Irrespective of what the courts may impose other than detention, they have won.

We are not advocating detention in every case but certainly for recidivists, and the penalty must be realistic.

Young people operate in a different time zone to mature adults hence their tendency to live in the moment, so a detention penalty of a few days the first time, escalating by a few weeks for reoffending, would be the deterrent that will work without creating the hardened criminal that social engineers claim will be the outcome. Operating on youth time is the key.

The habit of governments following ideological whims to remove criticism by pretending they are addressing a problem is fraught with danger, the problem will not go away if the rules are relaxed.

This is a similar approach to the drug epidemic.

It is, however, a disgrace and a terrible indictment imposed on the youth and the victims.

What about the victims of youth actions that will no longer be criminal, but which severely damage the property or rights of these victims?  Will the Government compensate victims?

Will victims have access to Victims’ support, given the actions of this group are no longer criminal? Why should innocent victims bear the loss and burden?

Will insurers still honour policies when the damage is not a crime?

For example, a group of eleven-year-olds is actively stealing from shops.  Is the shop owner within their rights to physically detain the youths and recover his or her property, with force if necessary?  Young offenders know what they are doing is wrong.  Irrefutable evidence of this is that they flee when challenged.  If they did not know what they were doing was wrong, why would they flee?

Rather than resolving and working pragmatically to address the problem, the government has created a monster that will have unintended and dramatic adverse consequences.

The judiciary that created this problem with the support industries of the social manipulators that have evolved around the court system must be tasked with resolving it.

Rather than working pragmatically to address the problem, the government has created a monster that will have unintended and dramatic consequences.

There is no better demonstration of the many breakdowns of the Legal system than the approach to bail. We regularly hear that perpetrators commit serious offences while on Bail; the idiocy is that these same perpetrators regularly have their original bail extended, but you never hear that the Bail has been forfeited.

The net effect is that Bail does not act as a deterrent, part of its function.

Victim’s rights must be protected.  To do otherwise is to condone crime.

If we do not push back against this idiocy and the failure of the courts to accept responsibility for the loss of young lives, ‘ARE WE BARKING MAD OR JUST PLAIN STUPID?’

CRIME IS OUT OF CONTROL -WHY?

by CAA | Jun 19, 2023 | Library, Youth

20th June 2023

The Community Advocacy Alliance CAA has been concerned for some time and repeatedly warned that failing to undertake effective preventative, proactive programs will lead to a worsening youth crime rate.

Our worst fears have been realised.

So concerned about Law enforcement’s direction, the CAA developed a Police Veterans in Schools Program with many Police coming out of retirement as volunteers to deliver the program. But this was thwarted by the then Chief Commissioner Ashton and the impact of COVID.

The current Chief Commissioner who supported a school’s program has been unable to implement it, and we wonder whether there was pushback from the Education Department or Union against the proposal. Or perhaps internal pressure by those Police with a limited mindset only capable of understanding the reactive approach as the role of Policing.

Irrespective, the State still does not have a structured, measurable program that can intervene and reduce crime before it occurs; proactive Policing.

Unfortunately, over two decades ago, the then Police Command withdrew the Force from active involvement in working face-to-face with youth and the community in crime prevention programs. This decision was not based on any empirical data but the opposite and was implemented by an executive that obviously did not understand Policing and functioned on a whim.

Although there is some activity in this space today, it is minuscule, the efficacy is flaky at best, and what does happen now is not structured or measurable.

The programs scrapped or so severely impacted as to make them impotent, were ‘Blue Light Discos’, ‘Police in Schools Involvement Program’, ‘Safety House’, ‘High Ropes’, and ‘Operation Newstart’, all of which were force-wide. While numerous other programs initiated by local Police, such as ‘Backyard Rugby’, ‘Poll Position’, ‘Walk It Like You Talk It’, and many more, actively engaged with youth.

These programs were predominantly driven by the frontline Police acknowledging the problem and providing a solution, a bottom-up approach with the front line Police having ownership of the initiative and, therefore, voluntary commitment.

The Police recognised the importance of schools in these programs and generally involved them and their community, creating a whole of community approach, to the benefit of the children.

What is forgotten is that the growth of youth gangs can only occur where there is a pool of willing youths eager to join. Engaging with the younger youth before they are misdirected, is the only sure way to mitigate the gang culture – cut the supply line.

Ironically many of these programs initiated and developed in Victoria and then scrapped continue very successfully in other States and overseas, where the value of these programs is universally accepted as an essential part of effective Policing.

Victoria Police have been forced to adopt a more reactive, risk-averse policing model.

The current Chief Commissioner, Patton, is attempting to return to a community policing model, but unfortunately, it is like trying to turn the Titanic. And like the Titanic, these attempts have failed, and the inevitable outcome is where we are today.

In well over a decade, there has been a huge turnover in police numbers, and consequently, many newer police officers know nothing but a reactive policing model, with proactive policing an anathema to most.

We are paying a heavy price with substantial Police resources heavily committed reactively to the youth issue. This is at the cost of servicing the myriad of other societal problems that befall a community. The most obvious is Domestic Violence and the Road Toll.

The result is already being felt, with a marked decline in effective crime prevention, impacting all facets of our lives. Increased incidents of Domestic Violence and a soaring Road Toll.

Fear of crime can be the worst form of oppression for any community.

Having identified failings within Policing, the real elephant in the room seems to avoid scrutiny.

Hiding in full sight is the Judiciary.

While the focus, to a degree, is unfairly levelled at the Police, it is unfair for the Police to shoulder all the blame when it is the Courts that bear the ultimate and the lion’s share of responsibility for the situation we now face.

Police arrest and charge perpetrators, but it is the Courts that determine the penalty upon conviction and must take responsibility for the outcomes of each sentence imposed.

The responsibility for charging perpetrators lies with the police, while the courts determine whether they become recidivists.

However, the legal system in Victoria seems to be a combination of different approaches that claim to be innovative but lack any accountability. The introduction of Restorative Justice in the past decade has caused significant harm to the legal system. This process has reduced the accountability of perpetrators for their crimes and, in some cases, has shifted the blame to the victim. For instance, in cases where the victim left a window open, the perpetrator climbing in and stealing property was seen as less serious, thereby reducing the criminal’s culpability. This is absurd.

In all of the nonsensical initiatives or interpretations that followed the lauded Restorative Justice initiative, the Courts lost perspective of what they were there for and any semblance that the Courts bore any responsibility for the crime rate, is successfully disguised.

Our Court system has so deteriorated that perpetrators can be bailed multiple times, have multiple court appearances, and the Courts simply find excuses to allow the perpetrators to return to the community to offend again.

The oft-hackneyed phrase, ‘incarcerating perpetrators only makes them worse’ -is arrant nonsense because the rhetorical question that must follow is, ‘worse than what?’.

Perpetrators who are recidivists are ‘worse’ back on the streets, particularly young ones who need to be protected from themselves as much as the community needs to be protected from them.

Any notion that the Courts have an obligation to the Victim or society more generally has evaporated. The Courts have been totally encapsulated in the notion that the offender needs all the considerations, and somehow being nice to them will solve the problem.

We suggest that the problem is, that most juvenile offenders who are at the lower end of the IQ Scale see anything other than incarceration as beating the offence.

In reality, most offenders scoff at the lenient sentencing as nothing more than an inconvenience, as the Governments own statistics reveal.

Reoffending by children and young people in Victoria found that in Victoria, young people aged 10 to 14 years have the highest reoffending rates of all ages in the criminal justice system, with more than 80 per cent reoffending at some time, and more than 60 per cent reoffending with an offence against the person (Aggravated Burglaries).

https://www.justice.vic.gov.au/youth-justice-strategic-plan-2020-2030-delivering-age-appropriate-responses-for-10-to-14-year-olds#

The Judiciary has clearly failed in its duty. Generally, it passes off the responsibility for this shocking State of affairs to the ‘Juvenile Justice system or Police, but it is the Judicial officers who are the ones who determine the outcomes, not some bureaucrat working in the Department or a police member trying to attend more calls than the available time their shift allows.

All the browbeating is worth naught until the Judiciary starts regularly incarcerating offenders rather than issuing continued warnings, introducing consequences, a novel approach to reducing crime.

It’s important to understand that detaining juvenile offenders for a brief period can actually be beneficial in breaking their behavioural patterns. This point is often overlooked by those who are against incarcerating minors.

A child lives in the moment, and time relative to them differs greatly from that of an adult.

Many within the Judiciary avoid the hard decisions, and until we insist on accountability and the compilation of useful statistics where the performance of a Judicial Officer can be measured, nothing is likely to change.

What value is a Judicial officer’s service to society when their decisions translate into a very high recidivism rate amongst perpetrators who are convicted in their Court?

We need to shift the focus of the Courts to their proper role of reducing crime.

Without the Courts doing their job, the Police cannot do theirs, and we all suffer as Police are committed to the recidivist gangs rather than other important issues.

And the future? Courts will continue to allow perpetrators to avoid responsibility for their crimes, and Police will be faced with ever-increasing demands for increased police numbers to deal with exponential demand for the reactive function, at a huge cost to the State that you and I pay for.

We desperately need a brave Government intervention and a circuit breaker to the spiralling downward trend of Law and order in Victoria.

Without intervention in the Courts current philosophical disposition, criminals will ultimately face far less punitive outcomes for their activity and coupled with the moves to decriminalise the Drug issue and raise the age of criminal responsibility, you can see where it is headed – and it is not good.

TEN TO FOURTEENS- COMMIT MURDER BUT NOT IN VICTORIA – REALLY?

by CAA | Mar 20, 2023 | Library, Youth

20th March 2023

Do you remember the shocking case of two-year-old James Bulger?

1993    James was abducted, tortured and murdered by two young boys. The murder happened  in the UK, and Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were convicted for this atrocious  crime. They were both ten years old when the offence occurred. The high-profile 1993 British case horrified the world, everybody was rightly stunned as to how that could happen, but it did.

James Bulger being abducted by Thompson and Venables.

2017    An eleven-year-old boy was charged with Murdering Patrick Slater in a brawl in Perth.

2020   Solomone Taufeulungaki, a Melbourne Teenager, was murdered by a gang of  eleven, including two thirteen-year-olds. They have all been charged with  Solomone’s murder.

Melbourne Teenager Solomone Taufeulungaki was murdered by children

2021.  Five young people charged with Murder in Sydney, boys aged 13,14,15,13 and a girl aged 15, were apparently the perpetrators, all charged with the murder of  a sixteen-year-old boy.

2023  Media report that a 13-year-old was charged with the murder of his 4-year-old   sibling in Danville, Virginia, US. The 13-year-old was charged with murder after suffocating their sibling and confessing to the crime.

2023 The report (H/S 16/03/23 p.22) of the murder of a twelve-year-old girl by  classmates aged twelve and thirteen who confessed the crime. The victim was stabbed thirty times and dumped in a wooded area.

In this incident, offenders were aged twelve and thirteen and was particularly gruesome and horrific; highlighting the folly of increasing the age of criminal culpability to fourteen.

This murder occurred in Germany, where the age of criminal responsibility has been lifted to fourteen, and neither perpetrator can be charged, raising some very interesting issues for Victoria, currently considering the same regressive move.

• Will the victim’s family face being confronted by the perpetrators in their community?
• How will the family cope knowing the murderers were not punished or even tried?
• What happens if the perpetrators claim innocence? Their matter is never tried so they will be forever tarred with the title murderer? The legal maxim, innocent until proven guilty, may not reconcile with the Court of Public opinion.
• What happens to the perpetrators? The sheer brutality requires the community to be protected.
• Clearly, the police would have no power to intervene in any continuing offending, so who does?

We accept that these offences are not an everyday occurrence. Still, they are so brutal when they happen that the community cannot and will not tolerate this decriminalisation as part of being an enlightened society – particularly for the families of those who, as a result, have their loved ones’ lights put out, brutally and permanently.

These random examples are just a few of what happens, and it happens here, so we would be extremely foolish to take the ‘won’t happen here’ path.

It has and will continue to happen; the uncomfortable truth for the social dreamers is that as much as we might wish it, it is inevitable.

This current push in Victoria has the hallmarks of another Social construct that is not well thought out and devoid of an understanding of the consequences and reality.

The number of children aged 10-14 charged in 2007 was just over 10% (of all young people charged), but by 2016, the trend had the figure at 4.3%, according to the Crime Statistics Agency Vic.

Our current strategies are working, although they could be improved upon; why dabble, build on a solid foundation if you want enhanced results.

As the law currently stands in Victoria, a child over ten and under fourteen cannot be charged with a criminal offence unless they knew the alleged act was wrong when they did it. The safeguard of having an independent person/ parent present when the child is interviewed, to our knowledge, has never been challenged.

This proposal is like throwing the baby out with the bath water, inane.

There is no doubt that youth crime has grown overall, but then so has the community, and the Police Cautioning program, its years of success, with its low recidivism rate remaining the cornerstone of this multi-discipline approach in guiding young people away from crime. Still, it is not designed to deal with serious crimes committed by the very young, which has to remain the purview of the Courts.

See https://files.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/

The following questions we pose for the Government.

• What mechanisms will be in place to protect the community?
• What mechanisms will be designed to help victims?
• What do police do with the child?
• What protections exist to allay litigation for the victim or the perpetrator?
• What strategies prevent criminals from exploiting and using children to commit crimes, particularly in the drug scene?

Germany has made a grave mistake with their approach, lifting the age to fourteen; there is no empirical data even to hint that the current system in Victoria of the age of responsibility is an issue.

A home invasion where victims are woken to find perpetrators in their houses is extremely frightening. However, this scare is not mitigated because the perpetrators are subsequently determined to be children. The victims will be just as terrified in some circumstances fearing for their life, irrespective of the age of the offenders.  A list of Home invasions allegedly committed by children under fourteen would be too long to detail here.

The danger increases for the victim if the perpetrators are young, as they do not understand all the consequences of their actions. That is an irrefutable fact.

We have no issue with, and support developing strategies to reduce the incidence of juvenile offending and support any efforts in this area, and equally support the current multi-discipline approach to reduce the likelihood of young people reoffending.

However, we strongly reject the current proposal, which effectively removes the ability of police to give a formal caution where the child, the parents, and professionals can be brought together to assist the child’s direction and also completely ignores the rights of victims and the broader impact on the community. The risk of escalating child criminality is just too great.

We do strongly recommend that a formal and structured police-in-schools program be revisited as a preventative initiative with the added advantage that the assistance for the children can be coordinated with the schools bringing police and the professionals together to achieve better outcomes, focusing on prevention and follow-up of children cautioned, improving the outcomes for children. Such a program also educates children in the pitfalls of being involved in anti-social behaviour in all its forms and encourages their formal education.

Additionally, this program will support School staff confronted by children or parents and create an overall safer school environment for all, to improve educational outcomes overall.

So let’s hope sensible, pragmatic ideas prevail and raising the age of criminal responsibility is not pursued.

Premier – don’t do it.

The CAA would be happy to assist the Government in achieving a workable plan with reduced risks to all.