STAND TO SAVE KIDS YOUTH CRIME INITIATIVE
THE GROWING PROBLEM OF YOUTH CRIME IN TOWNSVILLE IS LEADING TO A LOT OF FRAYED NERVES AND TENSIONS IN THE COMMUNITY. ONE GROUP IS TACKLING THE PROBLEM HEAD ON AND CAMPAIGNING FOR LEGISLATIVE CHANGE, REPORTS
ANGER around youth crime in Townsville is a “powder keg ready to explode”, but community inaction is condemning children to a life of crime.
The threat of residents turning into vigilantes that hunt juveniles down for some brand of civic justice has spawned a new unified group made up of respected indigenous leaders and everyday Townsville residents that want to help our youth.
Headed by small business owner Jeff Adams, they call themselves the “Townsville One Community”.
The group are calling for the Youth Justice Act to be amended to allow alternative sentencing options to be made available to judges, and longterm funding to be secured for rehabilitative programs that have yielded results.
The numbers are stark; young offenders aged 10 to 17 were responsible for at least six property offences every day in Townsville in 2018/19 according to police data, up 3 per cent from the year before.
As of Monday this week, there were 58 children in Cleveland Youth Detention Centre, 51 of them indigenous.
Uncle Dennis Clay, who is part of the group, says often kids think prison is the better
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option, to escape the domestic violence occurring at home, to have a bed, and so they can eat.
Elder Uncle Russell Butler and Wayne Parker Snr would know these kids through the Yinda Program, which takes young indigenous offenders out to country so they can find their identities, and teach them about hard work and respect.
Mr Parker spends his nights partroling Townsville’s streets, picking up First Nations children as young as eight or ten, high on drugs including MDMA, inhalants or ice.
The children, he says, are often homeless, couch surfing or robbing bottle shops for alcohol.
“There are a lot of good parents out there, and some bad parents where they lost track of their kids,” he said.
“The only way we’re going to break this cycle is to get these kids out of community.”
They want changes made to the youth justice system so these kids can join the program, run by volunteers.
“We want to get the real hard-core ones and give them their identity back because that’s what’s missing in their life,” Mr Russell said.
“In there, (Cleveland) they’re not accountable for anything … they should be made to go to work, doing community service or looking after old people.
“They have how to do that.”
Mr Adams said he felt compelled to create the group once it became clear the current system was failing children.
“You only have to read what’s out there on social media and the inaction of everyone is actually condemning these kids to a life of crime, and the community to a life of living in fear,” he said.
“It’s a powder keg ready to explode.
“Alternative sentencing programs that will keep the kids out of here is the main goal.”
Reams of research by criminologists has shown punishment as a deterrent doesn’t work well.
Queensland’s leading criminologist Griffith University Professor Ross Homel has a catchphrase for this exact problem; prison doesn’t make bad people better, it makes bad people worse.
The “youth injustice system”, as Prof Homel calls it, is broken.
A high percentage of childto be taught ren entering the youth justice system already have cognitive and neurological conditions such as Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, as a result of trauma and pre-natal conditions.
“The entire youth injustice system is broken, that’s what it is, injustice … these children have been damaged before they were even born, and have continued experiencing violence in their early years,” Prof Homel said.
“The fact that we punish them again is absolute madness. It’s extremely important to provide development opportunities, safe housing, but it’s also important to have a supportive community around them, adults who care.”
This is where Uncle Dennis Clancy and his Hawks Boxing and Youth Development Academy step in, with their