AUSTRALIA
Our child outlaws
Queensland criminals are becoming younger and younger
as thousands of juveniles embark on mindless vandalism, theft and
assaults. Kids as young as 10 are committing a multitude of crimes
including robbery, assault, arson and sexual offences. The most recent
Queensland police figures show more than 16,400 offences were committed
by kids aged 14 and under last financial year, up 13.6 per cent.
Child experts say the justice system is failing to
make juveniles take responsibility for their actions and allowing them
to “thumb their nose at the law”. And they say a lack of resources to
help troubled youths means many are left to commit further offences.
This week 20 children, one as young as 12, went on a
killing rampage at an emu farm near Cherbourg. Police said the youths
slaughtered 44 birds, costing local farmer Col Purcell more than
$12,000.
Last month a 17-year-old youth was banned from Pacific
Fair shopping centre on the Gold Coast after he and four others went on
a violent rampage, assaulting and robbing shoppers, damaging cars and
overturning a trailer.
A police juvenile aid bureau officer based in Brisbane
who asked not to be identified, told The Sunday Mail the law needed to
“get some teeth” when it came to dealing with juvenile offenders. He
said he had recently sent a 10-year-old Brisbane boy to court for
violent offences including assault occasioning bodily harm after he was
found to be harassing his entire neighbourhood. The officer, who has
served with the bureau for the past five years and worked in child
protection before that, said there was incredible frustration among
officers over courts who are “preventing juveniles from taking
responsibility”.
“Judges can refer juveniles to community conferences
even when the police have said they're not suitable candidates,” he
said. “We keep getting the same kids back here again and again. And the
offences are getting more and more serious and the level of violence is
escalating. These kids are thumbing their noses at the law, and they
keep committing offences. If they break the law they should be given one
chance and be put on probation — not probation after probation.”
In March, a teenager was jailed for 12 months after he
broke the jaw of a teacher trying to protect a student from being
assaulted. Aged 17 at the time, the youth was wearing steel-capped boots
when he kicked the teacher in the head in the schoolyard of Ferny Grove
State High School.
In 2002, a group of 10 youths as young as 11 assaulted
a young couple in Brisbane's King George Square. The woman blacked out
after suffering a broken nose and facial injuries while the man had
paint thrown in his eyes.
The police figures show more than 42 per cent of
juvenile offenders received a caution and only one in four was arrested.
Juveniles charged with anti-social behaviour can have their movements
restricted by a magistrate only through bail conditions, which are valid
only until the case goes to court. Brisbane Youth Services director
Michael Tansky said many juveniles were committing offences because they
were being left unsupervised. He agreed with police that many juvenile
offenders had no respect for the law. “A lot of these kids are home
alone and I think that is an element in these cases,” Mr Tansky said.
“Figures show there are thousands of exclusions from Queensland schools
every year and when they are not in school they are out in the community
– getting into strife. And then you have wealthy families where the
parents are always working and the kids are unsupervised. We need to
help resource schools to keep troubled kids in school.”
Mr Tansky said many juvenile offenders were also a
product of a risk-prone home environment. “They are being exposed to
adults that don't have respect for the law," he said. "And often they
are being exposed to violence.”
State president of the Council of P and C
Associations, Wanda Lambert, said a lack of parental supervision was
“one element in a complex issue”. “These are very disturbed young people
and what some of them are doing is quite frightening," she said.
She said many parents felt a lack of support when it
came to their children misbehaving. “A lot of the time the law doesn't
back them up and kids get a slap on the wrist.”
A spokeswoman for State Communities Minister Warren
Pitt said that since 1998 there had been a significant cut in the number
of young people appearing in court, on supervised orders and in
detention in Queensland.
“The Communities Department is committed to constantly
developing and improving interventions to reduce offending. These
programs target all parts of the system from crime prevention to youth
detention centres.”
Jessica Lawrence
10 May 2004
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,9505294%255E2765,00.html
home /
Previous feature
|