Echo Issue Outline: copyright Echo Education Services
First published in The Echo news digest and newspaper sources index.
Issue outline by J M McInerney
Does the law deal appropriately with young offenders?
The release on September 18, 1995, of Victorian Children's Court Statistics showing a 62.7 per cent increase between 1990 and 1994 in the number of crimes against person committed by young people has led to speculation that Victoria and Australia overall have a growing problem with juvenile crime.
This impression has been strengthened by the announcement made by the senior magistrate of the Children's Court in Victoria, Mr Greg Levine, that he will shortly retire, reportedly due to frustrations with the system.
Then, on September 27, a report was released by the Australian Youth Foundation, suggesting that police treatment of young offenders and young people generally needed significant reform.
These events appear to have sparked community debate regarding both the real extent of juvenile crime and how best to deal with it.
Background
Legally, a juvenile is anyone aged 17 and under.
Juveniles generally appear before the Children's Court when charged with offences.
The penalties likely to be applied to juvenile offenders differ from those applied to adults.
In recent years there have also been attempts, most notably in South Australia, to keep juvenile offenders out of the court system altogether.
The effectiveness of such moves is still being evaluated and a number of other states are considering introducing similar systems.
The Victorian Children's Court statistics indicate that in the 1990 to 1994 period the number of children charged with intentionally or recklessly causing injury rose from 89 in 1990 to 169 last year.
In the same period indecent assaults increased from 10 to 20.
The number of juveniles involved in crimes against property rose from 2898 in 1990 to 3456 last year.
While in 1990 a total of 49 juveniles were charged with possession of a drug of dependence compared with 108 offenders last year.
Arguments supporting the treatment young offenders receive before the law.
There are two main grounds on which the treatment young offenders receive before the law is typically defended.
On the one hand there are those who argue that the nature and extent of juvenile crime is such that some of the more severe treatment young offenders receive is both necessary and appropriate.
Contradicting this position, there are those who maintain that recent reforms in the legal system of some states, reducing the severity with which juveniles are treated, have made them far more suited to dealing with young offenders.
Those who argue that it is appropriate that young offenders be brought before the courts and made accountable for their offences point to the apparent increase in juvenile crime to support their claims.
According to this line of argument young offenders cannot be allowed to believe that they can commit crimes against persons and property without penalties being applied.
One possible penalty is that introduced in Western Australia where the option now exists of placing young offenders in military style work camps. This development is supported by psychologist, Ronald Conway, who argues that appropriate, firm punishment is necessary as a deterrent.
The majority of those who defend the current legal system in its treatment of young offenders, however, tend to do so on the basis of recent liberal reforms in juvenile law.
Those who stress such reforms point to developments in South Australia.
The South Australian Young Offenders Act divides the justice system into three levels.
The first two levels are designed to reduce the likelihood that a young person will progress to the third level - the courts.
The first level involves the police. The Young Offenders Act allows the police to caution a young offender formally or informally. A police officer with the rank of sergeant or above is also able to order the young offender to perform a maximum of 75 hours community service. To have his or her offence handled by the police in this manner requires that the young person has first admitted committing an offence.
The second level is the family conference. The offender, his or her family, the victim and the police are brought together with an independent arbitrator.
To be part of a family conference, the offender again needs to have pleaded guilty. At the end of the conference the offender agrees to the punishment or compensation decided upon by the group.
Such punishment is frequently community service and may be unpaid work for the victim of the crime.
Those who argue in favour of this system claim it has three major advantages.
The first is that it prevents the young person from acquiring a criminal record which in turn makes it easier for him or her to be accepted within society. In particular, the lack of a prison record makes it easier for that young person to later find a job.
Secondly, the family conference system usually prevents the young person from having to go to jail or detention centres. This in turn prevents him or her from being exposed to the corrupting influence of more hardened offenders while in detention.
Finally, it is claimed, that bringing the young offender face to face with the victim of his or her crime, forces that young person to consider the human cost of crime. This, it is hoped, will make it far less likely that the young person will re-offend.
Western Australia is trialing a similar system and both New South Wales and Tasmania have such a system under consideration.
In addition, in Western Australia, consideration is being given to imposing a curfew on young people as a preventative measure.
Victoria also claims to be attempting to improve its management of juvenile crime via a preventative approach centring on Victoria Police.
Victoria Police has been concerned to improve the image of police among young people and to improve police links with the juvenile community.
To this end Victoria Police has appointed youth officers in each district and has introduced education programs which involve, among other things, police youth officers going into schools in a number of capacities.
Health and Community Services Victoria has also claimed that significant reforms have been made to the administration of juvenile justice in Victoria with the emphasis now being on rehabilitation.
Victoria has also just spent $13.6 million on the new Melbourne Juvenile Justice Centre in Parkville.
Its population and that of another centre for older offenders at Malmsbury, is usually fewer than 100. This, defenders of the current system claim, indicates how limited in scope the problem is.
Arguments criticising the treatment young offenders receive before the law.
As with the arguments supporting the manner in which the Australian legal system deals with juveniles, there are also two contradictory sets of arguments put by those opposed to our current system.
On the one hand there are those who claim that the system is not severe enough. Conversely, there are those who maintain that the system is too severe and inflexible and does not take account of the special needs of young people.
Those who claim that the current system is not sufficiently severe typically point to juvenile crime statistics, suggesting that the apparent increase in severe crimes committed by young people calls for a firmer attitude toward young offenders being adopted by the law and society at large.
Psychologist, Ronald Conway, has claimed, `More young people are prepared to indulge in reckless violence and cruelty now that the chances of reprisals against them are rapidly diminishing.'
Mr Conway has also claimed, `What many of my brethren (psychologists and youth workers) will not face up to is that five per cent of offenders are ruthless little psychopaths who have no regard for anyone.'
Mr Conway has recommended a general firming up of the way we treat young people who violate society's codes. He has suggested that this should start with the re-introduction of corporal punishment within schools.
The mayor of Bourke, in north-western New South Wales, Mr Wally Mitchell, has also claimed, among other things, that the problem of juvenile crime requires `more police' and `minimal sentences [being] enforced'.
According to this line of argument, part of the solution to juvenile crime is to stop treating it leniently.
However, there are those who criticise the legal system because they believe it treats juvenile offenders too severely.
Juveniles' treatment by the police is one the main areas criticised by those who claim the law deals too harshly with young offenders.
A recent report released by the Australian Youth Foundation, titled Young People and Police Powers, claims that young people face so much suspicion, harassment and assault by police that they need new laws to protect them.
This report suggests that Aboriginal juveniles and some ethnic minorities are at particular risk of harassment by the police and it recommends that special anti-racist units be attached to police districts.
It also suggests that there should be more Aboriginal police and welfare officers.
The report further recommends that the police be banned from pursuing young suspects in car chases as these frequently result in death or injury to the young person.
Another recommendation is that police be banned from taking photographs, fingerprints or other specimens from young people except where the law says they must.
Currently it is claimed that police frequently exploit juveniles' ignorance of the law to put them through procedures which the law neither allows or requires.
The report also proposes that more mature age police be recruited, rather than younger candidates.
This stems from the report's claim that police under 25 were most often involved in situations where young people complained of unfair treatment or harassment.
The report also recommends that closed circuit cameras be installed in all areas where young people are detained.
This is intended to reduce the supposed incidence of violence being directed against young people by the police.
It is also recommended that youths on drugs or otherwise intoxicated not be locked in police cells. It is claimed that locking up intoxicated young people in unsupervised cells puts them in danger of injuring themselves.
It has further been proposed that a children's commissioner be appointed to oversee complaints against police handling of young people.
In addition to this, in response to the recently released Children's Court statistics, it has been suggested that large numbers of children are needlessly charged for minor offences.
Some child care workers have been quoted as claiming that hundreds of young people were being dragged into the criminal system unnecessarily for offences such as failing to wear a bicycle helmet or failing to tender a fare on public transport.
In 1991, 172 children were booked for not wearing bike helmets, compared with 639 in 1994. Similarly the number of juveniles charged with transit offences rose from 813 in 1991 to 2023 in 1994.
Critics of this development claim that children should not be formally charged and brought before courts for offences as minor as these.
It is claimed that this is a misuse of court resources and diverts them from their proper purpose.
It is further claimed that some system of warnings and perhaps community work would be a more appropriate response.
There has also been the general complaint made that there needs to be much greater effective co-operation between law enforcement officers and the courts on the one hand and support agencies on the other.
The senior magistrate at the Victorian Children's Court, Mr Greg Levine, has claimed that there needs to be more consultation between government agencies.
Mr Levine has suggested that the system needs to be more responsive to the individual circumstances of juvenile offenders. `We need to look at who these children are and what is happening in their lives.'
Further implications
There appears to be a general concern among both police and welfare workers that the significance of our apparent youth crime problem not be exaggerated and become a reason for `knee-jerk' reactions.
Some have expressed concern that youth crime not become a political issue, with parties making pre-election pledges to take extreme action against youth crime.
What appears to be at issue here is that whatever further actions are taken to improve the administration of justice as applied to juveniles, these actions need to be properly considered.
Moira Rayner has also observed that some of the concern about an apparent increase in youth crime may be misplaced as although there has certainly been an increase in prosecutions many of these have been for minor offences.
Further, Ms Rayner notes, the increase in prosecutions among juveniles has been significantly less than the increase within the adult community.
Finally there are those who argue that broader causative factors need to be taken into account and addressed. For example, it has been suggested that the impact of cuts on education spending in Victoria needs to be considered, in addition to a whole range of stresses, social and economic, which impact upon families.
Sources
The Age
19/9/95 page 1 news item by Paul Conroy, `Gangland Victoria: youth crime boost'
19/9/95 page 1 news item by Paul Conroy, `When a child kills'
21/9/95 page 14 letter to the editor from Jill Toovey, professional development centre, Monash University, `Did school cuts spur youth crime?'
25/9/95 page 11 comment by Moira Rayner, `Deficiency of moral fibre'
The Australian
27/9/95 page 5 news item by Scott Emerson, `Police use laws to persecute youth'
27/9/95 page 6 news item by Leisa Scott, `Blacks the majority in child jail'
27/9/95 page 15 analysis by Peter Weekes, `Jailbreak justice'
The Bulletin
12/9/95 pages 18 to 21 comment and analysis by Damien Murphy, `The new untouchables'
The Herald Sun
17/9/95 page 13 news item by Derek Ballantine, `Bring back strap, schools urged'
17/9/95 page 43 analysis by Derek Ballantine, `Innocence lost'
27/9/95 page 11 news item by Simon Ferguson, `Young want protection from police'
What they said ...
`We need to look at who these children are and what is happening in their lives'
Retiring senior magistrate at the Victorian Children's Court, Mr Greg Levine
`What many of my brethren [psychologists and youth workers] will not face up to is that five per cent of offenders are ruthless little psychopaths who have no regard for anyone'
Psychologist, Ronald Conway