NT youth crime law change to see kids ineligible for prison alternatives

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Northern Territory government will amend the Youth Justice Regulations 2006 to reclassify 13 offences as "serious", requiring children who commit them to attend court.

Transcript

00:00Well, it's just fiddling around the edges with some sort of, it's a really minor tweak

00:07in the legislation and it's not going to do anything to arrest or actually address the

00:13social problems that are creating all the crime. I can see why they're desperate because

00:18they hung their flag on the sort of law and order and they're going to clean up the streets

00:22and the streets are getting worse and worse, which is something they inherited. It's not

00:27news and it's all over Australia. The bulletin we've just listened to has got siege and people

00:34being shot and people being stabbed. There are social problems all over but what the NT government's

00:42done in relation to changing this minor thing is not going to make any difference.

00:45There is reported community anger of the behaviour of young teens and juveniles. People have been

00:50calling for a tougher response. This is going to please many of them. Can you understand

00:55the locals' frustration?

00:59Oh, totally. Local people here feel frightened. It's not safe. Alice Springs isn't a safe place

01:05to be and this explains why the tourism has crashed. That and the sort of like the anti-government

01:11sort of suggestion for citizens to go armed with capsicum spray. I mean, that doesn't really

01:17add up to a sort of pleasant holiday destination, does it? So it's unsurprising that it's gone this way.

01:25So if the stricter laws won't work, as you say, what impact are they going to have on young people

01:31and on levels of youth crime?

01:33None whatsoever. Very few kids made it onto a diversion and very few made it through diversion and they often

01:43re-offended it. It's not a magic wand. It doesn't address the chronic poverty that people live in.

01:49And it doesn't give kids a future. Like, you know, this is the intervention generation. These are the

01:55kids who grow up with the sort of, with the state smashing Aboriginal legal systems to the best of

02:00their ability. And they grow up in a lawless sort of space. And they get to an age where they realise

02:06that their life is going to be grinding poverty, chronic illness and early death. And they've got nothing to lose.

02:12You've spoken about the Youth Diversion Programme. We referenced it as well. What exactly is that?

02:19It's where, if you fit some criteria, which now have become slightly tougher,

02:27your case is suspended and you go and you sort of engage in a program that helps you address various

02:36issues in your life or attempts to. But having worked in that sort of space, the issues that

02:42the poor old caseworkers sort of come up against when they're doing work with kids like this is that

02:48they're just beyond the scale of anything somebody can actually deal with. You know, these are chronic

02:53social problems caused by social structures that have created this impoverished group of people

02:58who are out there with, who have very little respect for the law because all the law has ever done

03:03for them is oppress them. So if this is tinkering around the edges, then will it lead though to more

03:10young people being incarcerated? Oh yeah, but it's such an avalanche anyway. It's not going to

03:18substantially add to the number. Like the problem is way bigger than what, than this tiny little fragment

03:24that the NT government's seizing on in a desperate attempt to look like they're getting tough and doing

03:29something about the crime. And as I say, it's not their fault. They inherited it. The crime, this,

03:34this crime wave started 2007, 8 when the intervention happened and it's been, it's been getting worse and

03:40worse ever since. So it's not like the NT government's responsible, but what they're doing isn't helping.

03:45You know, they, they're just creating more and more imprisonment or more and more jails. It's like

03:50they're trying to push the NT into being, into having sort of private jails so that they can sort of like

03:56outsource, outsource all responsibility to somebody and create all the conditions that are in America

04:01where, where the social problems create a criminal, a criminal group, uh, who end up in jail and

04:08costing, costing us a fortune. It costs like half a million dollars a year to keep somebody in jail.

04:13It's a ridiculous waste of funds and the money. And it's after the event, you know, crime, if you want

04:18to prevent crime, you don't do it after the crime's happened. It's just a really flawed model.

04:24Blair McFarland, very good to get your thoughts and thank you for your time.

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