One Community One Standard forum presents Townsville youth crime plan
Community members and representatives from all political parties locked heads to develop a three point plan to tackle youth crime in Townsville.
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Community members and representatives from all political parties locked heads to develop a three point plan to tackle youth crime in Townsville yesterday.
Hosted by One Community One Standard, the bipartisan forum opened the floor to attendees to sift through issues they deemed as contributing factors to Townsville’s youth crime scourge.
Townsville woman and traditional owner Dorothy Smith said forums like this needed to occur more frequently to hold government departments to account.
“All too often big corporations, big NGOs, government departments are winning tenders because they can make the money stretch,” Ms Smith said.
“Grass root community organisations can’t because they have to start from scratch and it basically sets them up to fail because it’s nowhere near enough to run a successful program.
“This isn’t a black versus white thing, this is an all of community issue.”
Ms Smith said it was evident government arms were working in “silos” and no collaboration was happening.
She said addressing youth crime and child safety had become a lucrative business that neglected the people it was supposed to serve.
“All too often governments think they’re going to get a win within three years and we’ve gone away from actually looking at people as human beings,” she said.
“We’ve turned them into a statistic.
“We always say it takes a community to raise a child but realistically funding is raising a child, organisations are raising children.”
One Community One Standard’s Jeff Adams said the five-hour meeting needed to be a catalyst for change, demanding “immediate” response and action by the state government via local representatives.
The three point plan included an anonymous survey to be scattered across all government departments, and NGO’s involved in the youth justice system to give workers a chance to voice their position candidly.
There was no indication how this would be funded or managed to protect data.
The plan also included a request for a sit down meeting with the Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Taylor and 24 hour bail house and residential care monitoring by police with officers to be stationed at the houses.
Townsville has a designated action group with Stronger Communities, which was established in 2016 to act as a link between services addressing and involved in responding to crime.
For more information, visit townsvillecommunities.premiers.qld.gov.au.
Originally published as One Community One Standard forum presents Townsville youth crime plan