RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: OZschwitz gulag: Delinquent laws waste lives of young offenders  Fri Jun 26, 2009 6:29 pm | |
| If there is anything dumber and sadder than juvenile delinquents, it's a government that abandons reason and evidence to pursue a law-and-order crackdown against the young.
Everyone knows children and young teens who steal, joyride and break into houses are usually not the brightest or most privileged of the crop. Their faulty thinking and foolish actions are often a product of their upbringing. That's no excuse for crime but it means society is bound to make a special effort to help them. Locking them up is a last resort.
There's less excuse for the faulty thinking and foolish actions of the State Government. But it is showing the same inability to process facts and act rationally as the most damaged delinquent.
In the past few years its policies and actions have led to a huge rise in the number of children locked up, even though it is well-known jails usually do more harm than good to the young.
Most of the young detainees have not been convicted. They are on remand because they have breached a condition of their bail. Once they eventually go to court, most are not given a custodial sentence even if found guilty.
It's a centuries-old tradition that people charged with a crime have an unlimited right to ask to be granted freedom while waiting for their case to be heard. The right to bail is part and parcel of the presumption of innocence.
But the State Government has been hell-bent on making it harder for people to get bail. It first amended the Bail Act in 2002, then made further amendments in late 2007. Adult offenders were the target of the get-tough measures after some research had pointed to increased levels of offending by adults on bail.
Was it carelessness or pig-headedness that led the Government to amend the Bail Act without excluding juveniles from the new severity? Did it not listen to those who warned of the disproportionate effects the 2007 change especially would have on young people, or did it not care?
The change was simple enough: a person has one chance to apply for bail. Repeat applications are no longer allowed. If they cannot meet the bail conditions set at the time, too bad. Off to jail. If those granted bail subsequently breach a bail condition, off to jail for them, too, regardless of the seriousness of the original alleged offence.
Fair enough, some might say. But in the case of children it is anything but fair. It turns out magistrates tend to place more onerous bail conditions on young people than on adults: curfews, restrictions on where they live, who they mix with, where they hang out. In a sense magistrates are trying to play social worker.
Many young people cannot obey the conditions set. An order to stay at home in the evening may be impossible if parents are violent or abusive. One boy was ordered to attend school and otherwise be in the company of his mother. Police picked him up for breaching bail when his mother failed to be at the school bus stop to collect him.
Stepped-up police surveillance has also resulted in children being picked up for minor infringements of bail conditions. Pairs of police spend their evenings knocking on doors to check that children are where the magistrate told them to be. If they are at an aunty's house instead of with their parents - as may be the case with indigenous children - they will be hauled into jail.
The state's juvenile jails are bursting at the seams. The numbers on remand have increased by 40 per cent in two years, jumping from 3623 to 5081 in 2007-08. This means less money and fewer programs for sentenced youth who need rehabilitation. It means overcrowding. It means possible trauma for the youngsters on remand. It means youth jails are being built. It has all got out of hand. The Ombudsman, Bruce Barbour, told a recent parliamentary hearing: "It is a classic situation where policy decisions are made and laws implemented, the consequences of which are not properly thought through."
For a time in the Labor era it looked as if reason and evidence might prevail. There was an independent Juvenile Justice Advisory Council that advised the government. From about 2000 there was greater use of cautions and juvenile justice conferencing. There was an attempt to tackle the over-representation of indigenous young people.
Before long the reformists were marginalised and incarceration and political opportunism had again won the day. As the Greens MP Sylvia Hale has revealed, one consequence is a worsening of the position of Aboriginal young people - they comprised 56 per cent of sentenced detainees in 2007-08, up from 48 per cent four years earlier.
There is a tussle going on within the Government over the Bail Act and its consequences for young people. The Minister for Juvenile Justice, Graham West, is known to favour reform; the more powerful Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, has been a stout defender of the status quo. It goes to cabinet soon.
Let's hope the ministers are adult enough to be guided by reason and research. Let's hope they don't act like a bunch of juveniles.
LNK
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