Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / From the Desk -Adult Time for Adult Crime: Is Locking Up Kids Actually Working?

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From the Desk -Adult Time for Adult Crime: Is Locking Up Kids Actually Working? · Real Crime with Adam Shand

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  Speaker 1: Approache Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host Adam Shann. This is my Friday feature from
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  Speaker 1: the desk. What can Australia do about the question of
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  Speaker 1: youth crime? Can we arrest and incarcerate our way out
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  Speaker 1: of the problem? Handcuffed, pinned to the road arrest one
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  Speaker 1: of these juveniles is a prolific, serious repeat offender. Fourteens
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  Speaker 1: have been arrested following a dangerous chase in a stolen car.
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  Speaker 1: The popular solution to the issue is to lock them up,
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  Speaker 1: refuse them bail and keep them behind bars for the
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  Speaker 1: longest time possible. As one of my police mates told me,
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  Speaker 1: if they're committing murder, armed robbery, carjacking, aggravated burglaries as
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  Speaker 1: twelve and thirteen year olds, what worse crimes are there
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  Speaker 1: for them to graduate to? These are desperate times. All
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  Speaker 1: of this woke sunshine of lollipop stuff has been proven
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  Speaker 1: to be a failure. Public safety must be the first
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  Speaker 1: concern for government. They have failed miserably. Time for firm measures.
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  Speaker 1: But what if I told you the States have already
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  Speaker 1: tried these firm measures and they didn't work. We're already
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  Speaker 1: living with that failure, and it's only getting worse. Shocking
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  Speaker 1: statistic around eighty five percent of kids released from detention
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  Speaker 1: return within twelve months not good enough. A Productivity Commission
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  Speaker 1: report from January twenty twenty six shows youth detention spending
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  Speaker 1: has surged by almost four hundred million dollars in just
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  Speaker 1: five years, rising from seven hundred and twenty million in
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  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen twenty and more than doubling over the past decade.
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  Speaker 1: We now spend more than one point one billion dollars
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  Speaker 1: jailing kids and young people. The get tough policy, so
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  Speaker 1: popular with tabloid media, has been a costly failure. Yet
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  Speaker 1: the answer is to go harder. It makes no sense.
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  Speaker 1: It already costs an average of one point three to
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  Speaker 1: three million dollars per child per year, or more than
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  Speaker 1: three thousand, six hundred dollars a day. In Victoria, it's
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  Speaker 1: more than two point six million dollars per child per year,
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  Speaker 1: which is relevant because Melbourne has a serious and growing
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  Speaker 1: youth crime problem. Organized crime syndicates are recruiting vulnerable teenagers
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  Speaker 1: to steal cars, commit robberies, and fire bomb businesses, including
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  Speaker 1: attacks linked to the illegal tobacco trade. One answer to
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  Speaker 1: keep kids in custody longer is the idea of adult
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  Speaker 1: time for adult crime under legislation passed in Victoria and Queensland.
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  Speaker 1: In Victoria, it applies to children aged fourteen to seventeen
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  Speaker 1: years charged with specified serious offenses, including home invasion and
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  Speaker 1: aggravated home invasion, carjacking and aggravated carjacking intentionally or recklessly
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  Speaker 1: causing serious injuries in circumstances of gross violence, serious or
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  Speaker 1: repeat arm robbery, serious or repeat aggravated burglary. These cases
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  Speaker 1: are transferred or uplifted from the children's court to the
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  Speaker 1: county court, where adult sentencing principles and much higher maximum
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  Speaker 1: penalties apply. The major differences are the children's court can
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  Speaker 1: impose no more than three years detention, the county court
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  Speaker 1: can impose substantially longer adult sentences. Aggravated home invasion and
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  Speaker 1: aggravated carjacking now carry a maximum of life imprisonment. Imprisonment
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  Speaker 1: is no longer legally treated as an absolute last resort
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  Speaker 1: for children. Courts must place greater weight on community safety
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  Speaker 1: and harm to victims. However, it does not cover every
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  Speaker 1: offense committed by a child. Victoria's is much narrower than
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  Speaker 1: Queensland's adult crime Adult Time model and focuses on designated
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  Speaker 1: violent crimes. One of the biggest issues in Victoria is
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  Speaker 1: kids committing arsons on behalf of organized crime, but arson
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  Speaker 1: itself is not among the original eight uplift sentences. A
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  Speaker 1: teenager involved in illegal tobacco fire bombing is not automatically
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  Speaker 1: sentenced as an adult merely because it was arson, and
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  Speaker 1: at least five dren had been charged with arson or
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  Speaker 1: attempted arson connected to the tobacco wars. A sixteen year
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  Speaker 1: old girl and a fourteen year old boy were charged
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  Speaker 1: over Ballarat Mill Park incidents in early twenty twenty four.
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  Speaker 1: Three boys age fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen were charged over
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  Speaker 1: two Glenroy tobacco shop fires in May twenty twenty four.
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  Speaker 1: A six possible case is the sixteen year old boy
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  Speaker 1: charged in August this year over the two million dollar
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  Speaker 1: Richmond convenience store fire. It's believed that many other kids
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  Speaker 1: are being lured into doing the bidding of adults behind
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  Speaker 1: these attacks. But even if we detained twenty percent more
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  Speaker 1: children and somehow spent no additional money, the national average
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  Speaker 1: would still be around one point one million dollars per child.
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  Speaker 1: More detainees means more officers, teachers, health services and eventually
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  Speaker 1: more detention centers. Of course, dangerous offenders must sometimes be detained.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the alleged defenses recorded across Australia this year
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  Speaker 1: make us strong case for locking kids up. In July,
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  Speaker 1: seventeenagers aged fourteen to seventeen attacked a twenty seven year
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  Speaker 1: old man at Kelvin Grove in Brisbane, stole his new
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  Speaker 1: ute and abandoned it elsewhere in the city. The victim
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  Speaker 1: died in hospital in August sixth and the charges against
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  Speaker 1: the seven were upgraded to murder. This month, five Melbourne
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  Speaker 1: males aged sixteen to eighteen were charged after eleven reported
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  Speaker 1: incidents where victims were allegedly lured to meeting through dating apps,
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  Speaker 1: then assaulted, robbed, threatened and subjected to homophobic abuse. Three
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  Speaker 1: accused were charged with sexual offenses and one with kidnapping. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: back in Queensland, police set a thirteen year old Mirrorborough
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  Speaker 1: boy posed an imminent threat and was well advanced, allegedly
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  Speaker 1: planning violence at a local school. He was charged with
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  Speaker 1: preparing or planning to cause death or grievous bodily harm.
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  Speaker 1: And possessing violent extremist material. Police stopped short of alleging
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  Speaker 1: terrorism because his ideological motivation remained clear. Isn't that a relief?
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  Speaker 1: In Sydney, three teenagers aged sixteen and seventeen, together with
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  Speaker 1: an eighteen year old, were charged after an alleged Smithfield
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  Speaker 1: home invasion. The occupants were reportedly threatened with a firearm,
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  Speaker 1: knife and an improvised flame producing weapon. Police recovered alleged
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  Speaker 1: weapons and stolen property. Fortunately no one was physically injured.
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  Speaker 1: All these are really serious crimes and if proven in
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  Speaker 1: the children's court, the offenders will be locked up, but
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  Speaker 1: only for a maximum of three years. And judging the
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  Speaker 1: Melbourne kids involved in arson doesn't stop the adults recruiting them.
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  Speaker 1: Another simply takes their place. We must target the organizers
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  Speaker 1: while investing in intensive supervision, education, family intervention and treatment
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  Speaker 1: outside of custody. That isn't being soft on crime. It's
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  Speaker 1: preventing the next generation of criminals. And sure we can
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  Speaker 1: lock up more kids if we are prepared to pay
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  Speaker 1: the cost. And guess what, I don't think we are,
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  Speaker 1: and perhaps we failed to heed the lessons of history
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  Speaker 1: when we call it's a crisis without precedent. People have
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  Speaker 1: been saying this for a very long time. The Roman
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  Speaker 1: author Seneca the Younger wrote that youth had been trained
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  Speaker 1: in insolence and despised all authority. He also noted that
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  Speaker 1: every generation mistakenly believes its own time to be uniquely corrupt.
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  Speaker 1: The Romans tried their own firm measures to deal with
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  Speaker 1: youth crime. Once a young man began to wear adult
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  Speaker 1: garb the white Toga virlus, at around fourteen or fifteen years,
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  Speaker 1: he was legally an adult. If he committed a serious crime,
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  Speaker 1: he faced brutal adult punishments, including flogging, being thrown from
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  Speaker 1: the Tarpeian rock, or execution. When it comes to law
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  Speaker 1: and order, everything old is new again. If you've got
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  Speaker 1: a crime to report, please call crime Stoppers on one
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  Speaker 1: eight hundred, triple three, triple zero, or you can write
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  Speaker 1: to me at Adam Shanned writer at gmail dot com.
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  Speaker 1: You can also follow me and subscribe on Facebook. This
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  Speaker 1: has been Adam Shann for Real Crime from the desk.
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