Safer Streets Crime Action Plan – Youth Justice

Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission in relation to this important topic.

No Evidence

A review of the discussion document indicates that the only research that has been undertaken to prepare it is into opinion polls.  It is a document designed to pander to some of the worst prejudices in the community.[1]

A Crime Wave?

Underlying the paper is the proposition that there is some sort of youth crime wave affecting the community.  The Australian Bureau of Statistics Paper 4519.0 – Recorded Crime – Offenders – 2010 -2011 shows that youth offender rates in Queensland decreased in 2010-2011 compared with 2009-2010.

The Children’s’ Court of Queensland Annual Report 2011-2012 showed that:

            “Again there was an overall decrease in the number of juveniles whose cases were disposed of in all Queensland Courts in 2011-2012.  The decrease was 6.9% following a decrease of 8.6% in 2010-2011.” 

That report did show that there are a small number of persistent offenders who were charged with multiple offences, resulting in an increase in the number of offences alleged.

This is in fact consistent with long-standing research which shows that some 70% of juvenile offenders appear in Court only once with another 14.9% appearing in Court only twice.[2] 

Basic Principle

Since the end of the 1800’s there has been a shift from the punishment of children to the treatment of children and a clear acknowledgement that their age should be taken into account.  This is because children are morally different from adults as a result of the fact that they do not have the same judgment skills, self-control and ability to know right from wrong.  Children take more risks, pay less attention to negative consequences, are impulsive and look at short term outcomes and not a long term perspective.  They also suffer more from peer pressure.

Because children are impulsive and do not plan for the future, the concept of the deterrence has a particularly limited application to them.

These views of the differences between adults and children have recently been profoundly reinforced by modern neuro-scientific[3] research.

International Obligations

These principles are very strongly reflected in international obligations to which Australia is a party.  Article 37(b) of the Convention of the Rights of the Child provides that imprisonment is to be a measure of last resort for a child and only for the shortest appropriate period of time. 

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Criminal Justice, commonly referred to as the Beijing Rules, provides that, “In principle no information that may lead to the identification of a juvenile offender shall be published.” Whilst not binding these rules were developed on the basis of leading criminological research and represent a highly persuasive body of opinion.

Proposals

We turn now to consider a number of the specific proposals contained in the discussion paper.

Naming and Shaming of Children

First of all we note that Queensland Judges already have a discretion to name children charged with offences that involve violence against a person that is particularly heinous.  This is contained in section 34 of the Youth Justice Act 1992. 

It is not clear from the discussion paper how far this power is to be extended or whether the prohibition is to be removed completely.

The QCCL would oppose any changes to the current law.

A similar proposal was rejected by the New South Wales Legislative Council Standing Committee on Law and Justice in 2008 which accepted that the stigmatisation coming from being named may lead to an increase in recidivism.

That committee of New South Wales Legislative Council was in fact of the view that, “Naming juvenile offenders would stigmatise them and have a negative impact on their rehabilitation, potentially leading to increased recidivism by strengthening a juveniles bonds with criminal subcultures and their self identity as a criminal or deviant and undermining attempts to address the underlying causes of offending.”[4]

The discussion paper implicitly assumes that the naming of children will reduce the number of people committing offences.  This was also a proposition specifically rejected by the New South Wales Parliamentary Committee.  It could find no evidence of any research supporting the proposition that naming children would reduce recidivism rates.

The Committee went on to acknowledge that it is important for juvenile offenders to recognise their actions have caused harm and it is right that they should experience shame. However, the Committee Said, “The shame should be constructive, promoting rehabilitation and assisting the child to make a positive contribution to society over the rest of their lives.”[5] Reintegrative shaming, as utilised in youth justice conferences is an example of the constructive use of shame.  However, the QCCL notes with disappointment that this government has abolished youth justice conferencing in complete disregard of the evidence of its benefits.

Rather than rehabilitating young offenders it is the QCCL’s view that naming them would in fact serve to destroy their prospects of rehabilitation. This is particularly so when you consider the statistics quoted previously which demonstrate the vast majority of juvenile offenders only appear before the Courts once. That small group of repeat offenders who appear to be the focus of the government’s concern are not going to be deterred by the prospect of being named. In fact, as the New South Wales Committee found the likelihood is that they will be reinforced in their behaviour. Being named would become a badge of honour rather than a deterrent. The Committee went on at paragraph 3.117 of its report to say that it did not, “believe naming juvenile offenders will act as a significant deterrent to either the offender or other would be offenders.”

Furthermore, this policy has already been attempted in the Northern Territory where the research clearly indicates that the naming of children is detrimental to them as it results in harassment and the disruption of their educational and other prospects. 

Removing the principle that detention should be the last resort

The clear evidence is that rather than reducing crime, incarcerating young people in juvenile facilities increases the likelihood of further crime, particularly those with less serious offending histories.[6]

These types of policies involving applying greater detention to children have been implemented for the last twenty odd years in the United States.  It is surprising to see this government seeking to follow those policies when they have been demonstrated to be complete failures (see Justice Policy Institute – Common Ground: Lessons Learned from Five States that reduced juvenile confinement by more than half – February 2013).

In a paper entitled “No Place for Kids – The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration”[7] it was said that:

Programs employing therapeutic counselling, skill building, and case management approaches all produced an average improvement in recidivism results of at least 12%. By contrast, programs oriented towards surveillance, deterrence, or discipline all yielded weak, null, or negative results… A recent review found that cognitive behavioural training programs are associated with a 26% reduction in recidivism, the most of any treatment modality.

That document goes on to point out that the cost of incarceration is far more than alternative programs. We would consider this to be a particularly telling point for the current government. We find no reason for believing that the situation would be any different in Queensland than the United States.

Boot Camps

Once again this seems to be a populist measure having no basis in any scientific evidence.  This is the view taken by the highly regarded Dr Weatherburn.[8]  Once again these are programs which have been tried and failed in the United States where they have been proven to not only be ineffective, but harmful, and as a result have begun to wane in recent years.[9]

Reference to Criminal Histories as an Adult

The discussion paper in many places makes reference to rehabilitation.  However, the actual proposals suggest that it is just doing lip service to that concept.

This proposal to allow childhood criminal histories to follow a person into adulthood is entirely inconsistent with the basic premise of youth justice that people should not be tagged with their juvenile indiscretions into adulthood.  This is essential to their being rehabilitated into society.  It is another misguided proposal.

What should be done?

On 27 March 2003 Dr Weatherburn gave a speech entitled, “Turning boys into fine men: The role of economic and social policy”[10]  It is a document worth quoting at some length:

            “A lot of crime committed by boys is transient and opportunistic.  They arrive in adolescence drowning in testosterone, desperate for excitement and lacking the self-restraint that would later come with adulthood.  Being caught by their parents, or the school or the police is usually enough to stop the vast majority of them from further offending…Most young boys who find themselves in trouble with the law then are only transiently involved in crime.  They commit a few offences; usually of a non-violent kind, and then stop offending by the time they are in their late teens or early twenties.

Sadly for a small but influential majority of boys this isn’t true…they get into trouble at a rate that sometimes beggars comprehension.  Almost half of all juvenile court appearances come from the 15% of boys who have more than two court appearances.

Most persistent offenders acquire a criminal record, so one option is to increase the rate at which we imprison recidivist juvenile offenders.  Even the most optimistic research to date suggests that incapacitation is not a very cost effective way of reducing juvenile crime.  The money we spend incarcerating juvenile offenders would, in many circumstances, be better spent treating or trying to rehabilitate them.  There is good evidence that treatment for drug dependence is an effective way of reducing re-offending.  There is also good evidence, despite earlier suggestions to the contrary, that it is possible to rehabilitate re-offenders using methods such as conferencing, cognitive behavioural therapy or training in basic life skills.

These options though have their limitations…it would clearly be better if we could reduce the rate at which young people become persistent offenders, rather than increase the rate at which we catch them, put them behind bars or put them in treatment.

Early intervention programs offer us one avenue for achieving this, but it’s doubtful whether early intervention on its own would ever be enough to deal with the parenting problems that lie behind juvenile crime…this leaves us with just one option:  doing more to ameliorate the conditions that foster inadequate parenting in the first place.

…we need to reduce long term unemployment, encourage more flexible working arrangements for parents, and ensure that poorer families either get access to quality child care or adequate income support if they elect to stay home during the first year or so of a child’s life.  We also need to slow down the spatial concentration of poverty and revitalise neighbourhoods where disadvantage and crime have become deeply entrenched.

How might we do this?  Well, by dispersing public housing…by making a special effort to improve school performance in crime prone neighbourhoods we can reduce the risk or period of unemployment.  By investing in targeted labour market programs we can help break the nexus between chronic unemployment and crime in areas of high unemployment.  By strengthening local schools and sporting clubs we can combat the influence of delinquent peers and provide some of the supervision that parents may fail or find themselves unable to provide.”

This country has experienced a sustained period of economic growth stretching back some 22 years beginning in the last years of the Keating government.  Despite this there has been a persistent hard core of long term unemployed concentrated in a few areas of the country.  Contrary to coming wisdom these things are not a product of a so called culture of dependency[11]. Probably in the not too distant future, there will be another economic downturn.  We will at that time reap the consequences of failing to address these issues properly at a time of economic growth as opposed to resorting to policies which may win votes but have no scientific credibility.

We trust this is of assistance in your deliberations.

[1] In fact, when members of the public are fully acquainted with the facts of the matter, most consider the sentences imposed by Judges are appropriate and that Judges are in touch with public opinion – Warner et al: Public Judgment on Sentencing: Final Results from the Tasmanian Jury Sentencing Study, Australian Institute of Criminology Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, Paper No 407 February 2011.

[2] Weatherburn Law and Order in Australia, The Federation Press 2004, page 58

[3] See Age of Criminal Responsibility is too low, say brain scientists – The Guardian, 13 December 2011

[4] The Prohibition on the Publication of names of Children involved in Criminal Proceedings Legislative Council Standing Committee on Law and Justice April 2008 page XI

[5] Ibid para 3. 1113

[6] Juvenile Justice Reform in Connecticut, page 19 – The Justice Policy Institute http://www.justicepolicy.org/research/4950

[7] The Annie E Casey Foundation 2011 at page 16 http://www.aecf.org/KnowledgeCenter/Publications

[8] Op cit 139

[9] Justice Policy Institute Common Ground, Page 20

[11] http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/cultures-of-worklessness