It really is blind justice
QUEENSLAND’S Attorney-General, Yvette D’ath, was reported (TB 5/3) to have covertly dropped into town to sit in on 13 criminal youth matters in a closed court. After that “study” session The AG was apparently able to form the confident opinion that the Palaszczuk’s new youth crime legislation is proving successful. She was satisfied that any criticism of the new youth justice laws was unwarranted.
It’s fair to say Townsville community consensus regarding the new Palaszczuk Government’s youth justice legislation is firmly to the contrary. I would venture to suggest that pretty much everyone hereabouts is convinced that after five years in government, they still have no idea what they are about. The fact is that this new legislative intervention is making an already bad situation a whole lot worse. In summary:
• The police are being let down. They simply can’t do their job in curbing rampant youth crime; and
• The court magistrates, whose job it is to do justice and be seen doing justice, can’t do their job either.
This effect becomes a trifecta when you take into consideration the fact that Corrective Services have for a long time now been prevented from doing anything useful by way of helping straighten out these young offenders for their own good. The whole youth justice system has been bound and gagged and hamstrung by this rubbish Palaszczuk legislation. It isn’t a success. There are no winners, only losers. As it stands, there are two sets of primary victims:
1. Decent people are regularly and brazenly being robbed and bashed in open public places and even in their own homes. I know one family, living in a well secured home, that has had three break and enter robberies over the past five years. I also know another young man who ended up in hospital for weeks after getting a bashing severely enough to break his face and bust most of his teeth out. All to just steal his watch!
2. There is injustice also for perpetrators. Any youngster who commits a chargeable offence should be actively and meaningfully checked for having done so. This is for their own good as much as it is for the rest of the community. This is what laws and policing and courts and community are fundamentally all about.
The present youth justice legislation obliges the police and the courts to acquiesce to what is patently offensive juvenile behaviour. This acquiescence must inevitably, for juvenile offenders, translate as default endorsement of their wrong doing. By not effectively checking and straightening out juvenile offenders, the justice system as it stands, must be actively channelling many (perhaps even most) of them in exactly the wrong direction.
What we need most is a change of government. We need a new kind of government – government with both capability and integrity – government that understands and applies the best of good governance – and with a properly planned, strategic approach to fixing up Townsville’s youth crime crisis. What are the chances?