New solutions needed
IF WE THINK WE HAVE A CRIME PROBLEM NOW, WHAT WILL WE BE FACING IN FIVE YEARS?
IHAVE been thinking a lot about our escalating youth crime situation.
How it seems pretty hopeless. How increased police numbers won’t change much of anything, because while they have the task of apprehending, magistrates tend towards releasing.
Is it because it’s in court that the sorry extent of the offenders’ home life is revealed and incarceration seems a Band-aid solution?
We also heard that disappointingly, the State Government On-country program Gr8motive has hit a roadblock.
While magistrates are able to refer young people to the program, only two kids out of the 13 pencilled in have spent a few days out west, with the program that was initially proposed clearly faltering.
It’s been long suggested that these troubled kids need to learn about their culture from elders, go on country and find a connection to the land, self-respect and a way forward, but with only $1.5 million earmarked for the four-year program, and without a purposebuilt facility out west as a base, this concept is destined to fail.
It got me thinking about choices and how anyone could possibly convince kids who steal cars and joy ride around town to choose school and rules instead.
But what if ‘punishment’ was actually education, and sentencing kids to spend time in a bail house or detention meant successfully completing a set amount of modules.
Cleveland Bay Detention Centre has educational facilities, but it’s possibly more than you might think.
Here’s what its website says:
“26 indoor learning spaces positioned around a central open court with a series of outdoor learning areas and a teachers’ administration building … internal rooms with interactive electronic whiteboards, computer terminals and desks … speciality areas including a hospitality food preparation and serving area, music recording studio and radio broadcast facility, and a manual arts department with small engine workshop, wood working, metal work, building construction and horticulture. Sporting facilities include a gym, basketball and netball court, swimming pool, and a football and soccer field.”
The facilities sound better than many local schools, why not make the most of them?
Imagine if the ridiculous bail house money pit was scrapped and a cultural Cleveland farm facility built out west.
Imagine if courts mandated kids had to complete educational and manual arts modules at Cleveland and cultural modules on country, with privileges and release dependant on successful results? Would that be enough of an incentive or deterrent to make these kids think twice about reoffending?
Clearly, every case is different. But what are the future prospects of many of these kids other than graduation to an adult prison?
If we think we have a crime problem now, what will we be facing in five years?
Is it too late for teenagers addicted to the thrill of a wayward lifestyle or can they be steered towards a different path?
If magistrates could sentence kids to education via incarceration, would they be less likely to send them back home?
With both major parties intent on increased policing as the solution, expect more of the same, and nothing to change.
Something has to.