by CAA | Jul 8, 2024 | Illicit Drugs, Library, Victoria Police Issues
Yet another insightful article from Break the Needle.
We are thankfully not at this stage yet, but the efforts of our politicians and the trajectory they have put in place lead to some inevitability that we will as they push the failed ‘Harm Minimisation’ approach they have embraced – ‘Safer Supply’ will be the inevitable next step after safe injecting facilities and pill testing interventions that promote drug use.
The Canadian experience highlights the failure to recognise or accept that early
intervention is the only process that can reverse this trend from ruining lives.
…CAA comment.
………………………………….
Addiction physician Dr. Sharon Koivu has seen the effects of safer supply programs in her clinical practice and personal life — and is sounding the alarm
Having worked on the front lines of Ontario’s opioid crisis, she views these programs as a catastrophic failure.
In an extended interview, Koivu explained the unintended consequences of these programs, which offer free tablets of hydromorphone — an opioid about as strong as heroin – to vulnerable patients with a history of addiction. While advocates of safer supply claim it mitigates the use of more dangerous illicit substances, there is evidence that most users divert — that is, sell or trade — their hydromorphone to acquire stronger substances.
Safer supply was first piloted in London, Ont., in 2016, before being widely expanded across Canada in 2020 with the help of generous federal grants. While the program looked good on paper, Koivu, who provides comprehensive addiction consultation services at a London-based hospital, saw a different reality: her patients were destabilising, relapsing and fatally overdosing because of safer supply.
Koivu says that “one hundred percent” of her colleagues working in addiction medicine have noticed safer supply diversion. Some patients have told her they have been threatened with violence if they do not procure and divert these drugs. She estimates that, because of safer supply, tens of thousands of diverted hydromorphone pills — also known as “Dilaudid,” “dillies” or “D8s” — are flooding into Canadian streets every day.
For context, just two or three of these pills, if snorted, are enough to induce an overdose in a new user.
This influx has caused the drug’s street price to crash by as much as 95 per cent. While 8-milligram hydromorphone pills used to sell for $20 each several years ago, they can now be bought for as little as a dollar or two. These rock-bottom prices have ignited a new wave of addictions and relapses, and lured opioid-naive individuals into experimenting with what is essentially pharmaceutical heroin.
Koivu estimates that 80 per cent of her opioid-using patients now take diverted hydromorphone.
“The biggest harm is that we’ve turned on the tap and we’ve made everything cheap, which is leading to a large increase in the number of people becoming addicted and suffering,” she said.
“It is the most serious issue that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
Safer supply programs seem to regularly overprescribe opioids without considering patients’ actual needs, Koivu says. Patients have come into her hospital with prescriptions that provide 40 eight-milligram hydromorphone pills a day, even though they can only tolerate 10 pills.
‘That attraction is horrific’
Throughout the first few decades of Koivu’s career, almost “everyone” in her patient pool developed addictions due to childhood traumas or from mishandling opioids prescribed for chronic pain.
Since the advent of safer supply, the origins of new opioid addictions have shifted toward social or recreational exposure. Concerningly, this exposure often occurs in patients’ adolescent years.
“I’m seeing an increase in youth becoming addicted,” said Koivu, who has had patients as young as 15 tell her their addictions began through diverted hydromorphone.
“Almost everyone I see who’s started since 2018 started recreationally. It started as something that was at a party. It’s now a recreational drug at the youth level.”
Parents often seem completely unaware of the problem. Some have told Koivu they overheard their children discussing the availability of “D8s” at their high schools, only to later realise — when it was too late — they were referring to opioids.
“You can’t walk into your house with a six-pack of beer. If you’re smoking weed, people can smell it. But you can walk into your house with a lot of [tablets] in your pocket. So, it’s cheap, really easy to hide, and is even called ‘safe’ by the government. I think that attraction is horrific.”
“Our youth are dying at a higher rate … and we have a lot more hydromorphone found in [their bodies] at the time of death.”
While safer supply programs claim to make communities safer, Koivu’s lived experiences suggest the opposite. She used to reside in London’s Old East Village, where the city’s first safer supply program opened in 2016, but moved away after watching her neighbourhood deteriorate from widespread crime, overdoses and drug trafficking.
“I moved there to support a supervised injection site,” said Koivu. “Then I watched that community drastically change when safer supply was implemented. … I would go for walks and directly see diversion taking place. Homelessness is very complicated, but this has absolutely fuelled it in ways that are unconscionable.”
Koivu characterises the evidentiary standards used by advocates of safer supply as “deeply problematic.” She says many of the studies supporting safer supply are qualitative — meaning they rely on interviews — and use anecdotal data from patients who have a vested interest in perpetuating the program.
While Koivu has been blowing the whistle on safer supply programs for years, her concerns largely went unnoticed until recently. She has faced years of harassment and denigration for her views.
“When I came to say I’m concerned about what I’m seeing: the infections, the suffering, the encampments … I was literally told that I was lying,” she said.
Last month, the London Police Service provided the National Post with data showing that annual hydromorphone seizures increased by 3,000 per cent after access to safer supply was significantly expanded in 2020. The newspaper has since raised questions about why this data was not released earlier and whether the police stonewalled attempts to investigate the issue.
Koivu considers herself a lifelong progressive and has historically supported the New Democratic Party. But she is concerned many left-leaning politicians have ignored criticism of safer supply. Many seemingly believe that opposition to it is inherently conservative.
“I went to a hearing in Ottawa of a standing committee to talk about addiction,” she said. “We had five minutes to give a talk and then two hours to answer questions, [but] I didn’t receive any questions from the NDP or the Liberals.”
Although Koivu believes safe supply can play a role in the continuum of care for opioid addiction, she says it must be executed in a meticulous manner that prevents diversion and emphasises pathways to recovery.
“It needs to be part of a comprehensive strategy to help people get their lives back. And right now, it’s not.”
Above all, it is Koivu’s experience as a mother that drives her to criticize safer supply. One of her sons struggled with opioid addiction as a young adult. Although he eventually recovered, the experience could have killed him.
“Had this program been around … my family could have been another statistic from an opioid death. That drives me. Because it’s very real, and it’s very personal.”
by CAA | Jul 7, 2024 | Illicit Drugs, Library, Youth
This article gives an insight into the direction and traps in managing drug addiction.
Canada has been the window to the future of the drug addiction problem in Australia. It has shown the world the contrasting outcome of pragmatic management as opposed to the id
We will bring you further articles authorised to be published by Break the Needle, giving a window into where the drug epidemic is headed and what works and what doesn’t. We would do well to note the Canadian experience.
We have our own conflicted approach, with one arm of the government expending vast resources trying to control the illicit drug trade and use, the Legal system and the Health system dealing with the consequences of use, while all the while the government is promoting and facilitating drug use, with the Drug Injecting Room and further promotion of safe drugs, the Pill Testing service.
Captured by the failed ‘Harm Minimisation’ fallacy, we can expect the next big thing will be an emphasis on ‘Safer Supply’. The toe is already in the door with Pill Testing.
Opioid seizures exploded by 3,000% in Ontario City after a “safer supply” experiment.
Doctors and journalists wondering why local police failed to disclose concerning statistics to the public sooner.
JUL 07, 2024
A London (Canada) police drug seizure in April included 9,298 Dilaudid eight-milligram tablets.
By Matthew Hannick
Nigel Stuckey saved more lives during the last five years of his policing career than the previous three decades combined. “Every time you go back to the street, it has a different flavour,” said Stuckey, a former sergeant with the London Police Service (LPS) who retired in 2022. “As a frontline police officer, you are constantly going to overdoses in the city. I’ve administered Narcan to multiple people, and this is just something that never existed before.”
Stuckey first noticed a dramatic increase in overdoses and drug-related crimes occurring throughout his city – London, Ontario – in 2019. While the reasons behind this increase were initially unclear, recent data released by the LPS suggest that “safer supply” programs may be contributing to the problem.
Safer supply programs aim to save lives by providing drug users with pharmaceutical-grade alternatives to the untested street supply. That typically means distributing hydromorphone, a heroin-strength opioid, as an alternative to illicit fentanyl. However, addiction experts say the program is having the opposite effect, as many people who are enrolled in safer supply programs are illegally selling or trading their prescribed hydromorphone on the black market, a practice known as “diversion.”
Harm reduction advocates claim that safer supply diversion is not a significant issue, but according to an investigation into London Police Services (LPS) seizure data by journalist Adam Zivo, the number of hydromorphone tablets seized in London increased by 3,000 per cent after access to safer supply was greatly expanded in 2020.
In 2019, the LPS seized fewer than 1,000 hydromorphone tablets. This number jumped significantly in 2020 and continued to rise afterwards, reaching 30,000 tablet seizures last year – an unprecedented amount. The London police estimate that last year’s record will be met or exceeded by the end of 2024.
Doctors have said that this is only representative of a small fraction of what is actually out there, and that just 3-4 of these pills, if snorted, are enough to induce an overdose in a new user.
Some people are wondering why this data wasn’t released months, if not years, earlier.
Dr. Sharon Koivu, a London-based addiction physician, was among the first to recognize the harms of safer supply and has been warning the public about widespread diversion for years. Based on her clinical experiences, she believes that diverted safer supply hydromorphone is causing new addictions and falling into the hands of youth.
When Koivu tried to speak out against safer supply and call attention to diversion and an overall lack of program transparency, she was bullied and told that the suffering she was witnessing didn’t exist. This harassment was so severe that her mental health deteriorated and she worried about whether her career had been irreversibly damaged – yet the London police had quietly possessed data showing that she was right all along.
“It’s become an ideological thing,” she said. “People seem to have doubled down on the information they have. They don’t want to hear from someone who has information and concerns that don’t align with their, I’m going to say, ideology – because it’s not science.”
News of skyrocketing hydromorphone seizures might have remained hidden from the public had it not been for a major bust earlier this year.
On April 12, the London police announced a drug seizure which included 9,298 hydromorphone eight-milligram tablets. When Zivo inquired into this seizure, he received no answers to his questions for almost two months. He says that he was “stonewalled” and that the police seemed unwilling to release key data until it became impossible for them not to.
Zivo found it particularly concerning that the 2019-2023 hydromorphone seizure data was not released earlier. “Journalists and addiction physicians have been trying to raise the alarm about this issue for years,” he said, “but have been called liars, grifters and fearmongers, despite the fact that data validating their concerns existed and was held by the London Police Service.”
Stuckey, who now works as a documentary filmmaker covering London’s homelessness, addiction and mental health crisis, had a similar experience when he queried the LPS about the 9,290 hydromorphone pills seized this April.
Despite multiple requests for information about a possible connection to safer supply, the police service did not get back to him. He expressed frustration at the police’s unresponsiveness and worried that a lack of government transparency is endangering both the general public and law enforcement officers.
“Members of the London Police Service are being put in harm’s way dealing with organized crime and firearms to take drugs off the street, which were provided by the federal government. It’s absolute lunacy that we are paying one branch of government to rid a problem that was created by another branch of government,” said Stuckey.
It would be deeply concerning if the LPS knowingly withheld data pertaining to safer supply diversion. Not only has the failure to publish such data hindered informed public debate and policy development, it has also compromised the safety of the very communities which police are tasked with protecting.
According to Zivo, safer supply programs have benefitted from the silence of powerful institutions like the LPS. He said that, as there seems to be significant institutional resistance to acknowledging the community harms of safer supply, then more attention and trust should be given to local grassroots-level addiction medicine practitioners “who are bravely testifying to what they are seeing in their clinics.”
However, Dr. Koivu thinks that “the tide is turning” and that more people are beginning to understand the harms of safer supply
“I think it’s unfortunate that this data wasn’t made available sooner, when it was relevant to the funding of these programs and the changes we’re seeing in the city. The police need to be accountable for that. I really don’t understand their rationale for not addressing this” she said. “They hung me out to dry while knowing that what I was saying was accurate. If the police are afraid to come forward, no wonder physicians are afraid to come forward, too.”
by CAA | Jul 6, 2024 | Library, Victoria Police Issues, Youth
To say the CAA has deep concerns about this Bill and the adverse impact it will have on raising youth crime in this state is a gross understatement.
What is generally not well understood is that this Bill is ‘the foot in the door’ for further introducing the concept of ‘Restorative Justice’, a monumental change in how Justice is dispensed in this State.
A plan that promotes ideology over pragmatism.
Significant changes included in this Bill include the plethora of conferences and committees required to manage each offender instead of the concept of punishment and accountability, which has been whitewashed out of this Bill.
Preventing young people from committing crimes in the first place is not even mentioned.
Effectively, a child can take a position where they will not comply with any processes available to the Courts or any other authorities under this Bill, and nothing can be done about it. No punishment can be applied, regardless of the child’s actions.
We suspect that the majority of the community and many politicians do not understand the consequences of this Bill, and none of them are good.
Why wasn’t the community advised of this change? We are unaware of where the Government of the day achieved a mandate for such a severe and monumental change to the principles of Justice.
It took five years to draft, underscoring the difficulty and, given the outcome, incompetence displayed in the principles that have evolved to form this Bill.
This Bill will continue to stoke crime, not diminish it.
‘A committee was formed to design a Horse ( the Bill to Reform Youth Justice), but they came up with a camel ( no ordinary Camel but a two-humped Bactrian Camel with three legs).’
With all the effort of five years, the Bill as presented does not address the issue the community now faces and is riddled with extreme socialist ideology and drafted by a committee that has no understanding of the people they are supposed to be protecting. It will feed the crime wave.
The Bill misses the mark by a long way.
Central to the flaw in this Bill is the assumption that children under thirteen (13) cannot form criminal intent.
This assumption isn’t based on any empirical data and flies in the face of the reality of the evolution of human development.
Over the last two decades, the development of young people has accelerated faster than any other preceding era.
The speed at which this has occurred is most evident in the last ten years when evolution achieved warp speed, driven by two significant factors: Nutrition and Technology.
The ‘canary in the coal mine’, the juvenile crime surge, generally ignored, has seen the accelerated crime rate by Juveniles and the failure to recognise the changes that were occurring in front of us all.
Nutrition
The impact of a higher level of nutrition in recent times must be seen as positive as young people will probably grow up healthier than their predecessors, but with that nutrition comes increased physical development. It’s not an issue until you realise that young people, on average, are taller and better developed physically than their predecessors. A phenomenon that immature minds can and do exploit.
Technology
Technology continues to accelerate at warp speed, and young people born in this era are the ones who maximise its use. They are more connected and have access to more data than previous generations ever dreamed of. This massive influx of good and bad information has developed young people’s mental acuity well beyond the perceived norm. This has happened without comparative life skills development.
They, therefore, lack the ability and maturity to process and analyse this physical development effectively, leading them to emulate others without understanding the consequences or ignoring the consequences because there are none.
Impact
Today, a 10 – 12-year-old is the equivalent of a 13–15-year-old ten years ago.
The Bill is headed in the wrong direction and should instead be lowering the age of criminal responsibility, not lifting it, particularly when the child understands what they did was criminal.
Lifting the age of criminal intent to 12 years before children can be charged with a crime, irrespective of their development, is a recipe for increased crime. Waiting until they are older before any legal intervention can occur entrenches the child further into crime, making efforts to rehabilitate them from crime much more difficult.
Early intervention will reduce crime and improve the chances of young people developing without the stigma of exposure to Legal processes.
Why do we have to wait until a young person is climbing the hierarchy of crime before any action is taken?
by CAA | Jul 5, 2024 | Library, Victoria Police Issues, Youth
Remnants of the stolen car after Burwood fatality. Picture: Nine News/Today
It was a needless and shocking fatality, avoidable on a number of levels, and probably would have had more significant consequences had the thieves not taken a top-end car with all its advanced safety features to protect them, but not the innocent and hapless victim.
This needless loss of life is the direct consequence of a government ignoring advice, and unfortunately, the trajectory the government is on will only increase the risks, not mitigate them.
The government response was reported as:
A state government spokeswoman said what happened at Burwood was an unthinkable tragedy.
“Our thoughts are with the loved ones of the man who lost his life,” the spokeswoman said.
“Details about the incident are still being investigated and we are in close contact with Victoria Police. We are confident police will apprehend those who are still on the run as quickly as possible.”
She said Victoria had more police on the beat than any other state of territory and that the force targeted the worst young offenders, making 2700 arrests in the past year.
This statement attributed to a spokesperson is heartless and disrespectful to the victim and insulting to his family. We are not sure how the thoughts of the government can be with the Victim’s loved ones when they don’t even have the courtesy to use Ash Gordon’s name. However, the revelation in this statement should worry every Victorian when the spokesperson bragged of the 2700 arrests in the past year.
Again and again, this government ignores the simple concept of prevention, which is the only tried and proven way to stop this growing crime tsunami.
Arresting offenders is essential, but it will not reduce crime as the perpetrators are as inane as their actions. Still, they believe they won’t get caught, so the whole concept of deterrence is lost, exacerbated by the current judicial practices that obviously fail miserably to address the real issues.
The CAA has long argued that there are mechanisms that have been tried and worked in the past that could be reintroduced. A serious investment of money and resources into provocative policing is required to stem the tide.
The problem is set to become much worse as the government processes its latest effort, the Youth Justice Bill.
This 1100-page Bill that took five years to write doesn’t herald any innovation but is an extension of all the bad aspects of the current system. All the current flaws are further entrenched.
So, more of the same, only worse. More people will die, and more lives will be ruined, including devastating our young, because the government is focused on an unproven experimental concept, Restorative Justice, which nobody can indicate where this process has worked.
The government’s current and future strategies do not deal with diverting young people from crime.
Unbelievably, their new Youth Justice Bill regularly mentions diversion as one of its central planks. However, that is not a diversion from crime but from the legal system.
The two concepts are not mutually inclusive; they are different and seek different outcomes, which, in our view, are counterproductive objectives. Under the government’s new Bill, when a child commits multiple offences or a series of offences, there is no intervention or effort to have the child accept accountability or be subject to consequences. The Bill aims to put the child through a series of meetings and conferences, assuming that will solve the problem.
The recommendations of the CAA would have gone a long way to avoiding this tragic situation. See:
https://caainc.org.au/youth-crisis-a-solution/
https://caainc.org.au/crackdown-on-crime-the-wet-lettuce-leaf-approach/
https://caainc.org.au/you-cant-be-serious-premier/
A necessary and effective process of reducing the crime associated with cars is to ensure the vehicle, when stolen, can’t be used for the crook’s intended purpose. Take away their tools of trade; in this case, the stolen car, and the crime of Aggravated Burglary and car theft will plummet. Moreover, there are a raft of other serious crimes that stolen vehicles are currently used in commissioning; this initiative will curtail overall criminal activity. Crooks may have to resort to public transport or Uber.
An upgraded and relocated (within the vehicle) G-Tag could replace the E-Tag and perform that function to enable authorities to turn off the car, thwarting the crook’s ability to use the vehicle for criminal activity, including driving recklessly.
There will also be a perfect chance the car can be recovered intact, a blessing for those of the lower socio-economic strata, and the reduced losses of vehicles should reduce insurance premiums to benefit us all.
A number of cars already come with this capacity, and the owner can activate the disabling function; however, this assumes that the crooks didn’t take the victim’s phone and the victim is in a state to make sound decisions. Totally temporarily disabling the car at the wrong time could cause more significant risks to the community.
Imagine if a car was disabled at speed on a freeway without warning; this would cause carnage. With control of this resource by authorities, the vehicle could be monitored and disabled safely. With the owner having control, the consequences for their partner driving the car during a domestic dispute could have disastrous consequences. See:
https://caainc.org.au/?s=G-Tag
https://caainc.org.au/?s=The+G-tag
One problem the government has is being briefed by people who are not in touch with reality. The government was recently given a confidential briefing on youth-related matters only to have the staff from the Justice Department responsible for writing strategy for the government complain that the presentation was too graphic and stressful.
It is interesting how the victims of this crime may view this sensitivity, and it goes a long way to show that those drafting government policy are out of touch with the reality of the issues, perhaps living in a bubble of fantasy. Given some of their recent contributions, fantasy appropriately categorises their efforts. Unfortunately, the tragic death on Tuesday involving a stolen car is a portend of more to come. Lives are wasted by inaction. See:
https://caainc.org.au/woke-joke-meets-reality-shock/
It is fast heading in the direction that the only option for Victorians is to demonstrate against the Government’s direction as it is not only ruining people’s lives now living in fear but also ruining the lives of young Victorians coerced into crime.
The first action is to sign our petition at: https://caainc.org.au/petitions/
Then contact your local member of Parliament and make your views heard.
by CAA | Jun 22, 2024 | Current, Library, Youth
An article appeared in the Herald Sun on the 20th of June under the above heading and exposed the real and present dangers that Victorians face.
Crimes involving children as young as 10 years old have soared to their highest level since 2010 as alarming new figures reveal the state’s growing youth crime wave.
Children aged 14 to 17 years old were “over-represented” in burglaries, assaults, robberies and car thefts while almost 400 youth gang members were arrested within the past 12 months.
Baby-faced offenders aged 10 or 11 years old also recorded a 52.6 per cent spike in the number of offences committed.
More than a third of young criminals aged between 10 and 17 years old are repeat offenders, with the number of recidivist offenders rising by 10.4 per cent.
Children aged 10 to 13 years old were responsible for 84 aggravated burglaries across the state.
Five years ago, they had only been involved in 18.
These alarming figures are from the Crimes Statistics Agency Victoria, and apart from the danger these figures indicate, we are exposed to the more problematic fact that the Government is working hard to fan the flames of the issue, not resolve it.
More importantly, the government holds overall responsibility and is protecting ineptitude in the various arms of governments responsible for managing youth crime.
These must be held to account as much as the government.
The Courts
Daily, yet another juvenile responsible for atrocious crimes is being granted bail.
And given the Bail Act, it makes us wonder just what the judiciary is at.
The recent Bail Amendment Act 2023 (the Act), which commenced on 25 March 2024, made further changes to the Bail Act 1977, seeking to ensure bail laws protect the whole community and better target the use of remand for cases where it is necessary to prevent an unacceptable risk to community safety.- https://www.criminalsolicitorsmelbourne.com.au/blog/victorian-bail-law-reform
The Act is clear and applies standard English interpretations to the understanding of the Act’s purpose as amended; how do the courts circumnavigate this legislation, not occasionally but regularly, without apparent intervention by the government?
If the Attorney General does not provide leadership, the Director of Public Prosecutions must appeal some of these Court decisions.
What’s the good of having a government that produces a law that the courts ignore, suggesting they are not interested in subservience to the legislation?
It is our opinion that we are reaping the folly of the Restorative Justice fantasy forced on us as a solution to crime, but it has been an abject failure – just look at the crime statistics.
Why would any sane, reasonable person countenance any principles of that failed social experiment defies logic? And it is even more astounding that the judiciary could be seduced by this rubbish.
The Police
The Police do not help the whole issue.
The first point is that they need to stop making excuses that support the mindset that they can arrest their way out of the problem.
It took two decades to convert the Victoria Police Force under two visionary Chief Commissioners, Miller and Glare, from one predominantly reactive (as they are today) to a predominantly proactive force, particularly with youth.
The results were that crime by juveniles was not the epidemic it now is, and overall, crime declined as fewer juvenile offenders grew into adult offenders rather than managing and encouraging the juveniles into crime.
It took only one Chief Commissioner to destroy the effective direction of the force and three consecutive Chiefs, predominantly with a background of exclusive reactive federal police experience, to ensure the proactive approach was kept from developing, even though many operational police know the value of the proactive approach but gained no support as the police priority remains reactive.
The current Chief Commissioner has attempted to push back against the trend with limited success, as the crime statistics illustrate.
There is a major problem when you have an Acting Deputy Commissioner of Regional Operations, Brett Curran, quoted as saying, “A small group of hardened” young criminals were now committing severe and violent crimes more often.” (spin)
The following line says, ‘nearly 400 youth gang members have been arrested in the past 12 months.’ (fact)
Mr Curran also said, “Police arrested seven youth gang members, child thieves and car thieves every day during the past year.” (Spin)
That claim by Mr Curran equates to 2,555 youth gang member arrests, not nearly 400.
Indeed, some are arrested time and time again. Why? Because the courts are failing in their duty to the citizens of this state.
So much for the claim of a small number.
Victims would undoubtedly be impressed by the Deputies’ analysis (and maths) as they try to put their lives back together after an experience with the “small group”.
We wonder whether the Deputy who spent a considerable time out of policing as Daniel Andrew’s Chief of Staff has lost perspective.
As a Police executive, he has to learn not to use political spin he knew in his last job. The community sees straight through it and expects better from their Police leadership.
Department of Justice Youth Workers
Very little is said about their role or lack of success in the youth space, so we generally can only rely on the data, and by that measure, they have failed demonstrably.
They are referred to often in legislative discussions and are provided with powers to do their job. Still, there is something obviously and categorically wrong with the function of that government component.
These Youth workers aim to empower – young people in custody to steer their lives in a more positive direction when they return to the community”.
.- https://www.justice.vic.gov.au/youthjusticecareers
What a nonsensical function because the courts have demonstrated they are determined to have no juveniles of any age in custody. This supports the view that the courts wear this as a badge of honour and a demonstration that they are not subservient to the legislation. It is very dangerous and challenging to our democracy.
So, theoretically, those youth workers at the Department of Justice have little to do, as no juveniles are returning to the community; they never left.
Lifting the age of criminal responsibility
If a government were ever grossly tone-deaf, this issue is a classic. The age of criminal responsibility is planned to move from 10 to 14 years during a youth crime tsunami that the CAA warned was coming nine years ago. This has got to be the stupidest act any government has embarked upon in the crime space.
All this is based on is a feared notion that all children will end up in jail – which they don’t. Ideological nonsense is based on no empirical evidence.
This rubbish sways a government that wants to be taken seriously and is in denial of reality, a dangerous place for any government.
Moreover, children in this age bracket only ever get charged as distinct from being put in jail if they are not Doli Incapax, meaning incapable of forming criminal intent.
The question, therefore, is what to do with these miscreants, and that is a million-dollar question that all the “experts” advising the government on the bill have failed to resolve because no solution is offered.
The non-solution
The non-solution was reported as,
‘Police would still retain the power to intervene with younger offenders, including having the power to transport ten and 11-year-olds that find themselves in trouble with the law.’
The solution
The solution remains as elusive as it always has, and this legislation will not help, as it lacks a fundamental guiding principle for children and young people: accountability.
If children, or anybody, knows there are no consequences for criminal behaviour, then that’s what they will do, and they won’t change. Why would they if they enjoy it?
The problem is a lack of foresight and understanding of children and juveniles.
Children and Juveniles who play sports are less likely to commit offences, and the key is that sport has rules, and if the rules are disobeyed, there are consequences. That applies whether they are spectators or participants. Those youths who regularly attend school are also less likely to offend than those who don’t; again, rules with consequences.
Most people of all ages live within society’s rules; if they digress, there are consequences.
A significant contributor by a long measure to our present youth crisis is that for criminal behaviour, there are no consequences if you break the rules.
The issue of incarceration of children has been the primary driver for this reform, based on the emotive argument ‘you can’t put children in jail’, but the problem is being viewed from the wrong perspective.
The reform must encompass the principle of consequences, as all the other approaches are ineffective.
Rather than demonise the broad ‘jail’ concept, we should look at how it can positively affect young people.
We have long advocated that the justice system is too afraid to deal with the crisis of putting a child in jail, and often, that is not serving the interest of the juvenile or child.
One of the current flaws is that the judiciary views young offenders when considering penalties from an adult perspective.
Young people have a different perspective of time than adults, and a week or so in detention, where they gain privileges by compliance, will have a marked positive impact on them.
Young people respond exceptionally well to rules as they offer some solace and security; however, if they have never been taught discipline and breaking rules has consequences, it doesn’t work.
We are not talking about traditional views of jail but of securing the young person without privileges for weeks, not years. Their behaviour dictates the time they are in secure accommodation, not the judiciary. As much as the judiciary thinks they know how a child will respond, they don’t because they are not there with the child 24/7.
There are significant omissions in the proposed Youth Justice Bill currently before Parliament.
The most significant omission in the Bill
As much as the parents of these miscreants (if they have any) are criticised for lack of action, the Bill does nothing to elevate the role of the parents or guardians.
Yes, there are hopeless parents responsible for troubled children, but the vast majority try; many try but are judged poorly, and there is no provision to help upskill parents, and they have all but been omitted from this Bill. They have an essential role to play in reinforcing other initiatives.
Home detention
Supported by electronic monitoring, home detention should be the first option for any child convicted of an offence. Children do not understand ‘Orders’, and the other plethora of titles bandied about in the Courtroom.
Many need to understand that if they walk out after a court hearing unpenalized after a hearing, they haven’t necessarily beaten the charges, and their bragging rights within their cohort are worthless.
The new sophisticated Electronic Monitoring (EM) devices can fix a virtual perimeter for the child to live within, while providing for their education, sports and other essential family functions.
The EM device can alert a parent their child is leaving the house, breaching physical or social media curfew rather than finding they are gone the following day. Home detention means they cannot exercise their free will outside boundaries, and the EM gives the parents the tools they need to enforce it.
Use of their social media devices also needs to be controlled, and privileges gained by good behaviour and compliance to the rules, allowing more access.
The length of time that the child is in home detention should be based on the child’s or youth’s behavioural improvement.
Home detention is a very cost-effective way to manage miscreant children and divert them out of their criminal behavioural cycle.
Although we won’t hold our breath, maybe the enlightened members of parliament will see this legislation for what it is: a half-baked hotchpotch of ideological one-liners masquerading as legislation for the betterment of the State and its children.
There indeed are flaws in the current system, and they should be fixed rather than embarking on an untried excursion. Fix it; don’t replace it with thousands of pages of convoluted rubbish that will only hurt our most vulnerable children.
Inevitably, this legislation will leave vulnerable children at further risk, will do nothing to prevent more victims from being traumatised and will further impede effective policing.
An urgent community-based examination of a better way forward might lead to a real improvement in our juvenile justice system.
Simply raising the age of criminal culpability will have the effect of increasing crime as there are no barriers to young people offending.
by CAA | Jun 16, 2024 | Library, Youth
The CAA at least supports and acknowledges that the Government is trying to address the Youth Crime issue, but their approach has intrigued us.
It is obvious that those advising the government are so far off the mark that they make these new government approaches to juvenile crime almost laughable.
Unbelievably, this legislation has taken five years to develop, and it ends up something as inane as this.
The proposed changes to the relevant laws will not have any meaningful impact because they are designed to appease, not provide a solution.
The major flaw is how the juveniles who are the perpetrators react because that is critical to the success or otherwise.
In general, there will be no reaction because they will ignore any changes even if they hear about them, and that is highly problematic. They will not alter their behaviour if they even hear about it, and much less understand what these changes mean. As unrealistic as it may seem, youths commit crimes believing they won’t get caught, so sabre rattling at Spring Street is about as useless as hip pockets in underwear.
Let’s take a realistic look at the proposed changes,
- Recruiting children for crime.
Once a child has entered into crime, their mentors are to them demi-gods, and the last thing they would do is cooperate in bringing them down. The drug scene is renowned for the loyalty users have to their dealers, and users rarely dob them in. The closest authorities get is that the perpetrator’s best mate is probably their dealer, but proving it is nigh on impossible.
The 10-year penalty only applies if recruiters are caught; given the understanding of most offenders, this will have no deterrent effect.
Contrary to popular belief, the recruiters are not some giant ogre, but most probably, they are the same or similar age to the juvenile being recruited. The age disparity of the young means that twelve months could have a substantial impact on the aspirations of the younger juvenile.
- Using intensive supervision orders.
Empowering the Courts to apply intensive supervision orders is also next to useless because the perpetrators will not modify their ways, as being issued with that order has several flaws.
The child will generally have no idea what it means, and in their minds, they have beaten the charges (bragging rights). That occurs every time a child appears before a Court for a crime and walks out the door afterwards; irrespective of the outcome of their hearing, they have beaten it, they are free.
If Youth justice workers were effective, we would not be in the crisis we now face, so having them play a part in this space will only exacerbate the issue, and the problem will continue to escalate. History shows that there are never enough youth workers to effectively monitor young offenders.
Consider how often juvenile offenders now breach bail – another court order.
- Youth Justice workers gaining judicial powers.
According to the media report, the legislation allows youth justice workers to exercise judicial power by deciding if and when a child might need to be electronically monitored (an ankle bracelet).
There are several critical failures in this approach.
Allowing youth justice workers to exercise judicial discretion in this manner will guarantee that the EM will never be used, as it is contrary to the ethos of youth workers.
Most significantly, it allows unqualified (in the area of Law) persons to make decisions that alter the conditions of a court-imposed Bail, effectively overruling a court’s decision.
This undermines the Justice system, and the power must never be granted.
Inevitably, this power will be sought by all Youth workers simply by adding Justice to their title, as is already the case.
A cursory search reveals no less than six occasions where the term Justice is used in their title or job description, but they are not part of the Justice Department. The courts are the rightful place to adjudicate matters such as bail conditions, and the Courts must not be undermined.
This must be non-negotiable.
No matter how well they may be intentioned, it is simply not a Youth workers role.
It is highly probable that the Youth Justice workers would not be capable of effectively applying the necessary restrictions to enable the child to have reasonable freedom but sufficient to achieve compliance with their bail conditions.
It is not simply putting on an EM and monitoring it; many technical aspects of its operation are necessary to be effective, and that involves determining the conditions/locations that the child will observe. We note that their parents are not even worth mentioning, and irrespective of their parenting skills, this is very sad.
The system must have integrity and accountability for the opportunity for Natural Justice to be applied to any change in bail conditions imposed by a Court. The victims and the perpetrator (and, critically, the perpetrator’s parents) must be able to input into the monitoring parameters. The courts are the final arbitrators to determine the parameters and conditions of the use of EM, the opportunity to exist for decisions to be tested, and the final application to be capable of review.
It should not be up to the worker or, for example, the police as they are intimately involved, but in the child’s best interest, the decisions have to be made on the evidence by a dispassionate court.
The approach proposed is not in the best interest of the child.
- Intensive supervision orders
The name implies something so open-ended that it can prove useless to influencing the average 10 to18-year-old hell-bent on the thrill of their criminal endeavours.
If they ignore the bail conditions they already have, then the ‘Intense’ order will also be ignored; to children, it is just a word.
Youth workers and police will spend all their time tracking down the miscreants and taking them before the court to be re-released. The impact of reducing crime will be nil.
If a child misbehaves and requires upgraded supervision, they must be controlled by electronic monitoring.
- Transferring prisoners 18-21 to adult prisons.
This significant announcement is totally unnecessary and no more than political spin.
The adult Parole Board has, for a long time, had those powers. https://www.adultparoleboard.vic.gov.au/parole-process/youth-justice-transfers.
There may be a need for minor amendments to the CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES ACT 2005
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/cyafa2005252/
But the power already exists and properly is a matter for the Courts, not some bureaucratic whim.
- Raising the age of criminal responsibility.
We have previously raised the stupidity of this move on many occasions as it will lead to more younger children being involved in crime, recruited at a younger and more impressionable age.
The idiots who proffer this notion that young children end up in jail have no contact with reality.
How often are juveniles jailed? Practically never.
We do not argue that children should be jailed; however, where the circumstances are required, a short term (weeks, not months) would be appropriate not only to protect the community but also to protect the children from themselves and achieve Court compliance.
Threats of jail are of no value unless the threats are followed through.
It was very recently that a child in this age category committed murder but was not prosecuted, as many children who commit serious crimes are not because the threshold of the child’s understanding to meet the level of intent required before a prosecution can proceed. The system generally was working fine, so why the need to fiddle with it, mainly as it will not reduce crime but exacerbate it.
The energy of those pushing this agenda should be redirected to something useful, like developing effective strategies to avoid children committing crimes in the first place. A novel idea.
Police would still retain the power, including having the power to transport 10 to and 11-year-olds who find themselves in trouble with the law.
The picture being painted is that this age group are too young to be prosecuted, so what do the police do with them when they are transported?
Take them out for a Maccas to reward their behaviour.
Somebody is telling porkies about juvenile crime rates, but the true picture is available at https://www.heraldsun.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-victoria/fresh-spike-in-youth-crime-latest-police-statistics-show/
“This would ensure the state’s youngest offenders aren’t given free rein to offend.” A statement attributed to a senior government source.
They can’t be serious or that naive, but they are. Heaven help us.
These changes took five years to develop, reflecting poorly on the government and its capabilities. In five years, and this is the best they can come up with? Heads must roll.
It will be up to the public in two years to decide the value of this strategy, and in our view, there will be no tangible improvement in the situation from this scheme, which might be reflected in the ballot box.
We are just going to have to grow many more lettuces.
by CAA | Jun 6, 2024 | Library, Victoria Police Issues
“Just 58 per cent of those surveyed said they were ‘satisfied with policing services’, a massive fall from 73.1 per cent from the year before.” – HS 6th June ’24.
As indicated by our chairman, former Chief Commissioner Kel Glare, the issues stem from the inconsistency and, in our view, a poor police response to COVID-19. Still, some solutions can be implemented if the organisation is serious about lifting the community’s confidence, which should be a given.
The Victoria Police response was,
“the drop in public confidence is due to the survey being carried out online.”
The community is not looking for excuses; they are looking for action.
Puerile, ‘the dog ate my homework’ type excuses exacerbate, not diminish, community feelings. It’s time to step up and address the issues at hand.
Perhaps VicPol would be better off looking outside their management bubble to determine and implement solutions that may give the public confidence in their Force.
Here are a few suggestions,
- Review the CAA 100.3 https://caainc.org.au/?s=Plan+100.3&doing_wp_cron=1717636142.282346010
- Make policing at the community level the force priority over everything else,
- Re-prioritise Proactive policing as the force’s main activity.
- Undertake an extensive review of upgrading and modernising policies to be fit for purpose.
- Review urgently upgrading policies. A senior officer sneezes, and the repercussions are felt at the coal face as the upgrading practices push up members to fill the gap. Creating specialist relieving positions at all levels is cheaper and more efficient.
- Create a Force Reserve following the Military model. Releasing hundreds of members for general operational duties.
- Introduce KPIs for all ranks above Constable, which are reviewed monthly and compared against actual performance. Failure to adjust should instigate sanctions. Hard-working Police should not have to carry poor performers.
- Review all apparent Service Delivery initiatives to identify those that are Service Efficiency, not Service Delivery, and when the two collide, Service Delivery must prevail.
- Review the number of Executive positions as cost savings in that area can be reallocated to the frontline. Many have been created without a business case to justify the position.
- Reintroduce the intermediate officer ranks to provide more significant operational support, freeing up inspectors to actively provide leadership in the field. This can be done at little to no cost by not increasing the Officer ranks numerically but by realigning existing Officers.
- Review recruiting processes to avoid applicants waiting excessively for results and call-ups. At a time when numbers are down, creative measures are required to train more recruits, and if that means introducing shift work during training, so be it; trainees need to adjust to shift work immediately after they graduate anyway.
- Take a Force stance on the introduction of Electronic Monitoring of perpetrators to reduce police demand and achieve greater compliance, particularly in the area of Domestic Violence and Juvenile recidivist management.
- Ensure that the 50,000-eye road watch is implemented as an urgent initiative to reduce road tolls. https://caainc.org.au/50,000-eyes-road-watch/.
- Ring fence the Highway patrol so they can concentrate on the Road toll and not be purloined for other extraneous police duties.
- Take a leadership role in public issues like drugs and other community issues. This is not to encourage the Force bleating on these issues from one political side or the other of any public discourse but rather purely on the facts and the practicalities police face.
- Police should take a strong victim-centric stand and support the implementation of reparation as a Force policy.
- Additionally, the Force should also adopt a policy of not supporting plea bargains in all prosecutions undertaken by the Force. A criminal charged with an offence should not be something that can be traded away for convenience. The guilt or innocence of that particular matter can only be determined by the Court.
- Ensure the Force responds to all groups potentially intent on disrupting public order in an even-handed way. https://caainc.org.au/police-pride-march-a-valuable-lesson/
- Urgently review the uniform dress code, ensuring members wearing mufti hybrid with police paraphernalia revert to the uniform. If the uniform is not fit for purpose, modify the uniform. Emulating American Special Forces is churlish and dangerous. If there are legitimate reasons for plain clothes, all weapons, etc, must not be visible to the general public. permission should only be given on a case-by-case basis. When Special duties and the like, move around in uniform rather than mufti, they increase the visible Police presence an imperative to build community confidence.
Victoria Police is an independent entity and must be free from the ideological pressure of the politicians of the day. It can and should provide leadership on social issues based on the facts.
Moving the Force priority to the frontline uniformed specialist general Police locally, impacteing their resourcesas an absolute last resort will go a long way to improving public confidence in Police. If additional police are required for specific events, the resources must be drawn from non-operational areas.
That a swathe of non-operational Police are taken from their tasks for a day will have little long-term impact, but removing operational vehicles from their patrols can devastate service delivery to the community, which should be the priority.
The Chief Commissioner once said words to the effect that recruits break their neck to get into uniform and, after four years, apply the same rigour to get out of it.
Our response is that force management has to apply itself to creating creative initiatives to stop this phenomenon, as these factors bleed the frontline from experience and expertise where they are most needed. These members are the Force’s leading and most important resource.
Above all else, the community wants you to be there, even when they don’t need you, as the reassurance is invaluable and coincidentally helps prevent crime and disorder.
Deal with the issues before they manifest rather than picking up the pieces later.
by CAA | Jun 4, 2024 | Family Violence, Library
In a much-heralded announcement of a swath of new hardline measures to combat domestic violence, the Premier ruled out absolutely the one initiative that can and will make a real difference today, not tomorrow or perhaps next year, but now when the ever-present danger exists for many victims of Domestic Violence.
It seems like the government is tone-deaf to the plight of these victims and is agnostic to their peril.
It is also clear that a very extensive evaluation of Project Vigilance (PV) conducted in Tasmania would seem not to have been considered or understood.
https://www.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/1551782/Evaluation-of-Project-Vigilance-Electronic-Monitoring-of-Family-Violence-Offenders-Final-Report-July-2021.pdf.
Premier, domestic violence victims are dying while you dither.
You may like to revisit what you said at the launch,
“When women are still dying at the hands of men — we must do more”.
And you have done more. If taking the wet lettuce leaf approach is more, then you have definitely done that.
However, given the reports in the media, you are not being helped by your Attorney General.
Jaclyn Symes has ruled out ankle bracelets or electronic monitoring as even a consideration to stop the carnage, and from her contribution, it was clear that she has been poorly advised, is reported as saying,
“The government had considered doing so but received advice not to proceed because the “disadvantages outweigh the advantages”.
A statement made without detailing what the advantages/disadvantages were, and then another gem the AG provided was,
“Ankle brackets can often provide a false sense of security for victims”.
“We do not want women relying on a piece of technology that has been demonstrated is not fit for purpose for these situations,”
If relying on technology avoids one more death, then it gets our vote. The research conducted in Tasmania debunks this ill-informed notion with evidence from victims. See the full report and access above.
Even if the Government does not share our view, the vast majority of the community will when they are informed of what this technology can do. And notably the cost savings made to the disbursement of their taxes.
There is also no reason the user pays principle cannot be applied subject to means testing to defray some of the costs in hardship circumstances.
Currently, in NSW, criminals seeking bail can pay a private contractor to provide an electronic monitoring option instead of being remanded in custody as another bail option.
The private contractor approved by the court operates a control room to monitor the criminal’s movements, taking into account restrictions put in place by the court, and any deviation is reported immediately to the Police.
Over 300 perpetrators have taken advantage of this alternative, and no problems have been reported.
There would be no apparent reason not to use this same system for Domestic Violence or, for that matter, recidivist juvenile offenders.
For Domestic Violence supervision, Electronic Management (EM) is a very effective and cost-effective way to save lives.
Anybody who has been served with a Family Violence Intervention Order (AVO) and chooses to breach that order in any manner must be required to be EM monitored.
In those circumstances, there are two EM devices.
The perpetrator wears a non-removable ankle monitor, which can be pre-programmed with exclusion zones such as the victim’s home address, work or even children’s school. Any attempt at entering these zones (which can be set to any radius) will trigger an automatic violation, and police will be notified.
The second device is for the victim and is as unintrusive as a small mobile phone or fob device.
The device becomes a protective geo-zone around the victim as they move around freely. The monitoring system monitors both the victim’s and perpetrator’s devices to ensure they do not come into close contact, allowing the victim complete freedom while retaining security.
The bonus is the peace of mind that the Victim is not continually looking over their shoulder once they step outside their home due to the virtual electronic fence protecting them.
If the perpetrator does appear to be breaching the exclusion zones and confronting the victim, the electronic monitoring devices provide crucial intervention time. The monitoring centre can call the victim and advise them to immediately enact their safe plan (whether going to the local police station or finding safety in a shop) whilst police are dispatched and apprehend the perpetrator.
Through the two-way communication device, the victim would be alerted should they venture into an area where the perpetrator lawfully is, avoiding unintended contact. An obvious example would be where the Perpetrator may be lawfully in a large shopping complex that the victim has also intended to visit.
When the victim arrives, they can be warned that the perpetrator is in the centre or has arrived, and the victim can take the necessary steps to avoid confrontation.
Looking more broadly, these devices, generally restricted to the parole period of a perpetrator’s sentence, could be applied to the other end, ensuring the suspects charged appear in Court, or, more importantly, cease criminal activities during the bail period. Moreover, more technically advanced EM devices can record and monitor conversations, a terrific disincentive for those wearing one to commit further offences.
Albeit highly effective and financially desirable, the EM devices could be used as part of a sentencing regime at a fraction of the cost of the current options, countering the undesirable side effects of incarceration.
The evaluation by ‘Project Vigilance’ also addressed the costs and found the electronic alternative very cost-efficient.
For example, monitoring offenders electronically equates to roughly $47 per day, whereas incarceration costs were calculated by Morgan (2018) as nine times the cost of community corrections at circa $427. That or a similar equation applies to a domestic violence perpetrator who breaches an AVO.
This cost disparity is even more significant when the savings made by policing and other agencies, including the Courts, are factored in.
This can be further mitigated when a user-pays interface is imposed, subject to a financial hardship assessment of their ability to pay.
A system where the most anybody can pay is 15% of their gross income every week.
Although there may be a need to change legislation, the physical implementation of the system is a matter of weeks, not years, as the private sector has already established protocols and the backend infrastructure and processes, including 24/7 control rooms and mobile service resources to maintain the equipment.
For the Government to start from scratch and build a network facility, apart from the physical accommodation infrastructure, technical expertise does not exist within current Government resources.
The action by Government is very urgent, everyday lost is potentially another life lost and the last thing that the community and the potential victims want is another inquiry or pilot or some other such construct to delay, all that work has been done.
There is a huge risk by ignoring what the work that has been done or trawling over the same ground, the committee or whatever title they have will end up designing a camel when they were supposed to design a horse. And while they are doing that more victims will die.
It is improbable that the necessary electronics expertise exists within the government, and considering a hybrid option is fraught with difficulty and likely to ensure the system doesn’t work or falls well short of optimum effectiveness.
It is, therefore, essential that the Government must look to the private sector.
The Government must act now.
by CAA | May 28, 2024 | Library, Youth
Pic. courtesy Herald Sun
Victoria Police have been roundly and grossly unfairly criticised, as reported by ABC today, after a confidential briefing on Youth Gangs to the Justice Department policymakers in May of 2023, which the woke attendees attacked.
But this report based on FIO submissions says more about the ineptitude and professional incompetence of the woke complainers than an error of judgment by the Police.
Their primary beef was it was too graphic, showing real situations. Although all attendees were pre-warned that the content was graphic, many of the attendees did not like information that was not sugar-coated for their sensitivities.
See –
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/victoria-police-youth-crime-presentation-labelled-racist/103877374
The story relates to an attempt by VicPol to give ‘alleged’ professionals involved in the youth space a better understanding and insight into the problem they are dealing with. Decisions made in ignorance are never good.
This seminar was organised at the behest of Justice Department Juvenile Division members. It was attended by ‘dozens of staff’ from the Department and some from the Premier’s Department. Other stakeholders were also invited.
The conference lasted two and a half hours and featured actual CCTV footage of incidents involving youth gangs.
All invitees were informed by email the day before that the presentation would contain very graphic material that may be unpleasant to some. The email unambiguously read,
“graphic footage that some attendees may find confronting, and people might want to “excuse themselves” if they found it distressing.”.
The numerous complaints had one theme: denouncing their exposure to reality.
Among the complaints published by the ABC were,
- Multiple staff said the warning was insufficient for what was shown,
- One staff member said to put it “bluntly”, police “should have said ‘we are about to show you someone getting stabbed to death’.”
- “Very graphic and violent footage” from a “range of serious violent incidents including stabbings and still images involving young people and adults allegedly involved both as victims and perpetrators”.
- “Unclear purpose of showing [this] video is.”
- While several people acknowledged the “traumatic experiences” officers faced and the need for policymakers to “understand the practical and operational realities” of frontline police work, they didn’t think the presentation helped achieve this. (Policy makers preferring to stay in ignorant bliss)
- One person commented they were “disturbed” by “the casual way the violent imagery was discussed”, and another said the commentary was “upsetting … flippant, and racist in several points.”
- “I question why the image of this person’s face was kept in the presentation.”
- One staff member’s notes of the presentation said, “‘n-word’… completely gratuitous”, and the photos were “all POC [people of colour], no blurred faces”, including one of a “bloody wound to face” and one of someone “in a pool of blood.
Fancy the very people responsible for Youth Justice are grumpy because they have to confront what they are supposed to be doing as their day job: rein in Youth crime.
The next step is to arrange for these same people to be confronted by the victims of their failures. They can then explain to them why the offences happened.
This response from the people responsible for much of the failure of Youth Crime strategies demonstrates that most of them were at the conference to evaluate its wokeness rather than address the issues they were confronted with and employed to address. And their complaints to dehumanise the perpetrators by blocking their faces is puerile.
An advantage of taking the feigned or otherwise shock and horror and, heaven forbid, having to listen to emails read out sent by Gang members that contained the n-word, most probably by a coloured Gang member, is that they can absolve themselves from responsibility and remain in ignorant denial of reality.
This strategy of using the ‘woke outrage’ more and more to deflect the issue is to avoid having to respond or justify their performance. Create the diversion from their responsibility and prove how good they are by highlighting woke breaches.
This exposé has uncovered how out of touch the people responsible for youth policy are and why many of them must now reconsider their career options because it is evident by their admission that they are not competent to be employed in the field of Youth policy.
If they don’t voluntarily move, the administration must remove them for their own good. If action of that sort is not taken, it exposes the State to litigation from attendees who develop some disorder.
One of the most egregious alleged failings of VicPol was to refer to a 13-year-old as an offender for life. That outrage exposes the depth of incompetence these bureaucrats have.
A 13-year-old criminal is inevitably an offender for life unless held to account for their actions. That will be the inevitable outcome caused by the policy to lift the age of criminal responsibility, where there will be no sanctions or other intervention, albeit they knew full well their actions were criminal.
This outrage is more about the attendees being challenged about bad policy to lift the age of criminal responsibility.
We are outraged that while the policymakers want to lift the age of criminal responsibility, they have put forward no strategies or policy on what to do with violent underage perpetrators, a danger to the community and themselves.
Just letting them free to run amok again, as this policy dictates, is a disastrous outcome for the community and the child.
It would be interesting to see if these policymakers will ever be held to account for their failed policy; probably not, which is why they devise outrageous policies.
Instead of the policymakers trying to out ‘woke’ each other, how about they focus on the job at hand and find out more about what happens on the front line of Policing?
When they have done that, their policy machinations may be considered authentic.
It would be very interesting to know what these bureaucrats working in the government bubble have achieved that led to a reduction in youth crime and how many of them were required to achieve that outcome.
As to their bleating, this was not a public event, and the niceties dished out by the media do not apply—this was a reality and a professional life check.
The most disparaging aspect was that Deputy Commissioner Patterson apologised, and he should not have.
VicPol had nothing to apologise about; they did their job in the best interests of juvenile miscreants and the community.
They could have been rightly criticised if they attempted to sugarcoat the briefing.
by CAA | May 24, 2024 | Current, Drunk, Library
Herald Sun 24/5/2024 The Collingwood Drunk Tank is still a mess, but this time how it operates.
In the Herald Sun on 24th of May 2024, the reality of Melbourne’s sobering up centres has been exposed for the nonsensical dream created by some faceless government official who, although they may have experienced drunkenness personally, has never had to deal with drunks day in and day out.
It is a pity that the architect/s have not had to confront drunkenness on the streets. the Police is as stupid as the idea that drunks are only taken to the sobering facilities if they agree.
There is probably some relief for police that they don’t have to deal with obnoxious drunks. But it goes against their grain, or duty of care, just to leave them, as the police know the risks that exposes the drunks to.
When we initially heard that the drunks had to consent to be taken to a Sobering facility, we thought this was some joke as we all know drunks are, in their minds, all sober or only slightly affected. The statistics bear this out, with an average of only two people using the facilities in Melbourne per day at an unbelievable cost of $12K per drunk. But outreach workers have assisted 5625 drunks.
It is a classic of fixing a problem that barely exists.
That is hugely embarrassing for the Government because this project only deals with people who are not too drunk. How the degree of drunkenness is determined is a mystery, and then ambulances are called for those drunks, in part defeating the purposes of the facility, loading the issue back onto emergency services and overcrowded Hospital ER services.
If they are too drunk, what is the sobering facility’s purpose – only for nice, clean drunks?
Like the Injecting Room, that also won’t let anybody in if they are too drug-affected or drunk.
The behaviour of these facilities reeks of discrimination where personal factors determine whether the service is provided, unlike emergency Services, which do not have the luxury to discriminate.
The obvious solution is to scrap the centres and leave the welfare of drunks to outreach workers, saving millions and providing a better outcome for drunks.
The facilities can be repurposed so that people affected by drugs can be housed for a period so professionals can address their health and addiction.
A hiatus in their addiction will go a long way to diverting many away from drug dependence. See https://caainc.org.au/sometimes-there-is-just-a-better-way
The whole issue of the drunks must be rethought, with the test being the drunk’s mental acuity and physical shape, not some other nebulous discriminatory concept.
This must be a priority and not include the architects who dreamt up the absurd program we have been lumbered with.
Given the State’s financial crisis, the money allocated could be diverted to more pressing issues, like our state debt.
