Editorial: Keeping a keen eye on evil
THE NSW Police force is being stretched far too thin. The Daily Telegraph reports today, on current numbers, one officer might have to keep track of more than 100 offenders on the Child Sex Offenders registry, which continues to grow.
Opinion
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THE motto of the NSW Police Force is Culpam Poena Premit Comes — Latin for “punishment swiftly follows crime”. It’s a lofty and noble ideal, and one which the state’s men and women in uniform work hard to uphold.
The only problem is that to make the goal a reality, proper resources are needed. And as the Daily Telegraph has reported this week, when it comes to keeping tabs on child predators, the police are stretched far too thin.
As if the news that the number of convicted offenders breaching the conditions of the NSW Child Protection Register has doubled in five years was not enough, today brings news that officers are being asked to do too much with too little — leaving open the worrying possibility of crimes against society’s most vulnerable failing to be prevented.
Tony King, the newly elected president of the Police Association of NSW, tells this newspaper that on current numbers one officer might have to keep track of more than 100 offenders on the registry to make sure they are abiding by the terms of their release. And supervision is complex, specialised work: offenders must, among other things, keep the cops up to date about everything from their addresses to their social media accounts to whether they’ve gotten a new tattoo.
Currently there are more than 4000 child sex offenders on the registry but that number is growing every week as more offenders are released from prison or placed on the list by the courts. Which means that the number of potential violators is also increasing, something which has victims and their families up in arms: the family of Leigh Bradley, who was 17 years old when she was brutally abducted and murdered in 1991 have spoken for many when they expressed their outrage over the good behaviour bond handed down to Leigh’s killer after he was caught in the company of a teenage runaway and having an undeclared Facebook account.
The state’s Child Protection Register can only work as well as it is monitored and enforced. It is heartening to hear officials from the NSW Police Force acknowledge the problem. Hopefully, it leads to more officers being assigned to keep tabs on those on the list. Without more specialist officers to keep tabs on those who have victimised children in the past, more otherwise avoidable tragedies will occur.
GUYS, YOU’RE NOT INVINCIBLE
ATTENTION, young men of NSW: it’s time to shape up. With another Men’s Health Week upon us, the stats are grim. Even with improvements in life expectancy, men are still expected to die four years earlier than women — mostly because of bad habits developed in their 20s and 30s.
The good news is, it doesn’t have to be this way. Small changes to diet and lifestyle can pay big dividends later on in life. The state government is pouring more than $2 billion into men’s health services. Which is all to the good, but ultimately, guys, doing better will be up to you.
AN UNHEARD-OF PROGRAM
CREATING jobs and encouraging economic growth is a noble aim for any government.
And that’s just what boffins in the Turnbull government had in mind when they kicked off the Industry Growth Centres Initiative in late 2014 aiming to “drive cultural change and overcome barriers to innovation, productivity and growth” in the manufacturing, food, mining and pharmaceutical sectors through a number of government-run companies.
Which sounds great, if a bit heavy on the jargon.
But as The Daily Telegraph reports today, the only jobs and growth that have been created by the program have been within the bureaucracy’s own offices, with perhaps a bit of incidental side stimulus provided to the Canberra cafes their inevitable series of coffee catch-ups.
Not only has the program burned through $120 million — plus hefty bills for PR and consultants — it seems no one in the private sector knows about the program, with a majority surveyed having had no contact with the scheme. Oh well, at least it has kept any number of bureaucrats off the streets.