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.