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An interesting article worth reading out of the NT News for a change … This is spot on. While the world is at war killing children we are locking them up … (this includes Victoria!)

What are we doing about it ?

Read on …

BEING ‘TOUGH’ ON YOUTH CRIME WON’T SOLVE ISSUE
Jioji Ravulo
The new Northern Territory Chief Minister has boldly reiterated an election promise to lower the age of criminal responsibility back to 10.

This narrative around being tough on youth crime upholds our colonial approach to offending which is to punish the person alongside the mantra, ‘you do the crime, you do the time’. As such, youth crime continues to be a hot topic that pushes many people’s buttons.

It produces an emotive response from the police, victims, and the wider community who share polarising opinions. But at no time do we ever think about the young people themselves – we only see them as wayward and wrong – needing to be punished. When I first started working alongside young people involved in the criminal justice system 20 years ago, I had some initial reservations and worries.

Will they be violent towards me? Did they deserve the help? Is there any chance of them changing their ways? But these concerns rapidly evaporated when I started to hear the lived experience of such young people, their realities, situations, and circumstances that they are in.

For the majority of young offenders, their upbringing is marred by trauma, pain and loss. They may have been treated with repulsion by the education system. When interacting with the police, they are seen as a threat to community safety. They are overpoliced and profiled, to the point where provocation by the police occurs and such young people are then arrested and locked up.

Access to health resources is limited.

Young offenders may not engage with regular medical checks, including those related to their mental, physical and sexual health. And getting assistance from Centrelink to support their engagement with study, or finding a job is challenged by not having appropriate identification to open a bank account for a youth allowance payment.

As a result, young people in such situations and circumstances are relegated to the margins, left to fend for themselves without any sustained support and security.

Being left to feel isolated and alone has a profound impact on your wellbeing. You start to develop a mentality that you are no good, that you are a loner and a reject. Such thinking manifests into anger and hate for others, and any form of trust is approached with caution.

We as a society should be better at creating solutions for young people experiencing such situations and circumstances.

We need to fund effective and helpful models of service delivery and provision that meaningfully seek to address the social and welfare needs of the young person and their families.

This includes increasing funds to specialised learning environments in schools that are well resourced to engage young people based on their learning needs. Where learning is based on encouraging such young people to engage in topic areas and interests that will help them to develop vocational skills and attributes for further study or work opportunities.

This includes creating a policing culture that esteems the problematic young person as someone that needs additional support and assistance, rather than surveillance and scrutiny. Where prosocial interactions are created through verbal communication that is focused on helping.

This includes promoting safe spaces for young people to access health resources and interventions. Where health professionals implement outreach programs in local community spaces to assist with access.

And this includes supporting young people to obtain necessary documentation and resources to benefit from social security payment.

Rather than being tough on crime by holding an individual child accountable, we need to be tough on ourselves as a society. We need to create solutions that are focused on strengthening existing capabilities and capacities that in turn help such young people to thrive.

Professor Jioji Ravulo is chair of Social Work and Policy Studies at the University of Sydney