Youth Koori Court successful
“People are struggling weekly and you’ve smashed a window for literally nothing. That’s taking away a piece of someone’s income to get a replacement window from a family who work. Let alone all the other working families you rip off in Dubbo.
“This town is becoming increasingly full of disrespectful, entitled people who will do anything to get their own selfish needs met. Police are under-resourced, people are sick and tired of this.”
It really hurts when you have to pay $400 just to get the window fixed. You have to arrange for that to happen, you have to get the car to the window repairer, and the whole time you’re upset and annoyed that some low-life caused all this to happen.
If anyone has any clue, or CCTV vision, please get that information to the police.
A SPECIALIST court for Aboriginal young people charged with criminal offences appears to be having success in reducing rates of incarceration.
A new evaluation by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) compared sentencing and reoffending outcomes for 151 Aboriginal young people who participated in the Youth Koori Court with 2883 comparable Aboriginal young people who proceeded through the usual Children’s Court process.
The evaluation found that Youth Koori Court participants were 40 per cent less likely to receive a custodial sentence at their court finalisation relative to Aboriginal young people who were sentenced through the regular pathway.
While the evaluation found no statistically significant reduction in reoffending, Youth Koori Court participants who did reoffend were 84 per cent less likely to receive a custodial penalty at re-conviction.
Commenting on the results, BOCSAR Executive Director Jackie Fitzgerald said the findings suggest that culturally-sensitive, case management approaches can help to reduce the significant over-representation of Aboriginal young people in youth detention.
“It is an alarming reality that, in 2022, 43 per cent of young people in custody are Aboriginal. The Youth Koori Court offers a promising model to reduce incarceration rates of Aboriginal young people,” she said.