Youth crime: Proposal to overhaul schools to reduce rise in young offenders

A radical plan will be unveiled in a bid to tackle the youth crime crisis gripping this country, with more than 50,000 youths charged with serious crimes in the past year.

Special Report

Children would be red flagged in primary schools and targeted for early intervention in a radical bid to tackle the youth crime crisis gripping the country.

National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds will put the proposal to the federal government in July as part of her inquiry into juvenile justice, which has to date gathered 160 submissions.

Education would be completely overhauled and integrated with health, community and welfare services to identify and intervene before children end up in front of police and courts.

It comes as latest figures show more than 50,000 youths were charged in the past year with assaults, violent home invasions and even murders – the biggest surge in a decade.

But just 4 per cent of those guilty were handed a detention sentence.

CCTV footage from a youth break in Bulimba as the thieves got intercepted by the police and the owner. Picture: Supplied

Almost three-quarters of the 23,254 juvenile court matters finalised this past financial year involved male offenders, with 93 per cent or 16,978 receiving a guilty outcome.

The majority of criminal offences were perpetrated by 15 and 16-year-olds, with one in three alleged crimes being committed by repeat offenders.

Ms Hollonds’ high-level review as part as 10-year reform plan – to be presented to the federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfuss – outlines broad consensus that locking kids up doesn’t work and might exacerbate the crisis.

She said “emotion-driven knee jerk reactions” by state governments to get tough on crime did little with evidence states such as Queensland and Victoria, with the toughest laws in the country, accounting for the biggest issues.

Ms Hollonds has been holding meetings with police chiefs, corrective services, victims groups and children since May last year, gathering first-hand accounts for her review.

She said juvenile justice was in “crisis” and intervention had to start from the school before young people had the opportunity to commit crimes.

Logan Crime Reduction Unit target youth offenders in property crime blitz. Picture: Queensland Police

Schools needed to be remodelled as one-stop shops for education, mental health,

substance abuse and other family support services integrated and co-ordinated, she said.

Under the model, there was no added burden on teachers but the institutions would be co-ordinated for intervention by service experts for students and families identified at risk.

“We operate services in silos – a health department, education department, social services and that is all designed to meet the needs of government administration,” she said, adding that individual services were hard to access and did not recognise a family’s complex needs.

“They are not fit for purpose for today, they are like mid last century in their design and not meeting the complex needs that we face today, there are very big holes in the infrastructure and these kids and families can’t get the help they need,” she said.

New National Children's Commissioner Anne Hollands. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

“In a way by not fixing those problems in the upstream systems, by not getting better scaffolding to help these kids through their childhood years and support their families, in a way we are just allowing history to repeat itself … Clearly there are barriers but we have to get in much earlier when these children are very young. Dropping out of school when they are eight or nine (years) and if kids aren't at school where are they, they’re more than likely on the streets, doing silly things then getting more and more involved with crime.”

She said she hoped her review would create principles to guide reforms and ways to measure progress and create accountability.

“If we are serious about keeping communities safer then surely, surely, we would pull together across the federation and build a 10-year road map for reform and get on with it,” she added.

The Australian Federal Police two years ago warned of a coming “tsunami of youth offenders” and had backed calls for a national approach.

Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney Law School Don Weatherburn. Picture: AAP

One of Australia’s best known justice administration and crime prevention experts and former top NSW crime statistician Dr Don Weatherburn agreed more needed to be done earlier but saw courts as better placed to deal with it.

He said risk assessments were missing for kids for early intervention and that could be done if more were put through the formal justice system rather than “waved off” with repeated cautions and warnings

“My point is instead of simply taking the view that we should try to divert kids no matter what out of the court system, maybe it’s sensible to have a think about the risk someone poses and maybe the court would be better placed to organise an appropriate form of intervention,” Dr Wetherburn said.

“It just seems to be an assumption that sending someone to court is always a bad idea if they are a juvenile …. One of the things that people forget is often when kids don’t get to court, nobody discovers that they are not being looked after or they are living in a home full of violence or all sorts of circumstances that a magistrate might be able to do something about but which given a caution or a warning, nothing is going to be done about it.”