‘Child Safety is a terrible parent’: Cairns street kid on crime crisis
A teen offender born into the care of the state has given a heartbreaking insight into a statewide youth crime crisis, admitting he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies after suffering the trauma of being in 22 hour lockdowns.
Cairns
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A teen offender born into the care of the state and first locked up at 10, claims to have stolen more than 300 cars in a revealing and heartbreaking first-hand insight into a citywide youth crime wave.
Born to a neglectful mother and an incarcerated father, horrific domestic violence, drug use and rampant alcohol abuse spurred state intervention – but having the government as a guardian has proved a double-edged sword.
The 17-year-old Torres Strait Islander teen, who the Cairns Post has chosen to name Sam, was made a ward of the state from an early age and following a seven-year tour of Queensland youth correctional facilities is now back in Cairns housed within the residential care system.
Placed at a Manunda resi care home at a property with two girls aged 12 after being released from Cleveland Youth Detention Centre, Sam said he dumped his bag there on the first night and rarely returns.
He said youth workers occasionally try to track him down but he is largely left to roam the streets.
The scars on his face and track marks on his arms tell a story of abuse, hardship and disadvantage in a young life he describes as being a war.
The subject of Child Safety orders since birth, the ice-ravaged 17-year-old never learned to read or write.
Sam’s first contact with the juvenile justice system was at age 10.
When hungry he was forced to steal from shops just to survive.
Graduating from shoplifting to car theft, Sam had trouble clearly stating why he stole so many vehicles but gave a nod to material gain and the thrill of the chase.
In the past seven years he has been locked up in Brisbane and Townsville youth detention 15 times.
“You get used to it and Cleveland helps a lot in some ways, you sit back, reflect about what we did and why you did it and think about not doing it again,” he said.
“I didn’t grow up with my dad, I didn’t grow up with discipline, my mum belted me but it was not much of a discipline, but if my dad was in my life I would be stricter.”
Sam claimed it was common to be locked down 22-hours-a-day for extended periods and it was normal for phone calls and outside visits to be cancelled in a practice known as night-mode.
“I was talking to myself in the cell and they treated me like an animal,” he said.
Currently on a supervised release order, Sam claimed there was little follow up by authorities, education programs or support to heal psychological trauma caused by periods of solitary confinement.
Released last month, a report commissioned by Save the Children slammed Queensland’s youth justice system as being among the worst in the country for violating the rights of children.
Cases heard in Cairns courts this year exposing inhumane treatment of inmates including withholding of schooling, children being denied drinking water and extended periods of solitary confinement have been strongly criticised by judges.
“If you treat a child like an animal, it is unsurprising that they may behave like an animal,” Children’s Court Judge Tracy Fantin said in February.
The youth offender admitted to a long list of offences including snatching cash from the elderly, and when he was 16 Sam was the subject of a frantic police hunt after stealing guns from a Bentley Park home.
“When I was young I had no remorse but now it’s different, I don’t have the trim (motivation) to steal cars anymore and I do think about the crunch (consequences),” he said.
Sam said he felt trapped in a cycle he had limited power to get free from.
But he did indicate ties with mates on the street needed to be severed to make any progress toward a new life away from crime in a nod to long-called for relocation sentencing advocated for by Katter’s Australia Party.
“I just need to get out of Cairns for a while, every corner I come to, I’ll even walk around the corner right now and I’ll see someone (to do crimes with),” he said.
Kicking an ice habit and getting into a youth drug rehabilitation centre has been identified as a priority by Sam’s caseworkers at YETI.
Former Child Safety regional practice leader Joanne Borg said given Sam had been in the care of government departments since birth the state had to shoulder some responsibility for the boy’s life of crime and immeasurable harm inflicted on the Cairns community.
“Child Safety is a terrible parent and often they are more neglectful than their birth parents,” she said.
“Under the legislation (Youth Justice Act) support programs have to be run but they are not enacted.
“Attempts should have been made when he was a baby to educate him and provide meaningful support programs from the minute he was in care, because that’s the job of Child Safety.
“If he goes back to the Straits, we are sending back a monster and asking them to fix him when the system in Cairns has f***ed him up.”
Speaking from outside the Pease St McDonalds he once claimed to have broken into to make off with a safe, the articulate, sharp-witted 17-year-old in a moment of vulnerability shared his fears about being locked up in Lotus Glen Cortical Facility and dreams of being a superstar rapper.
But only for a moment, before his street hardened edge takes over.
“I hate the cops, I have no love for authority,” he said.
“They want to know what CNS (Cairns) does, what CNS does for a living, what us criminals do, we hustle and break and enter and break.
“But it’s the thing we got to do, we only do it at the point in time when we need it.
“That’s what I do, but some other boys do it because they are young, dumb and reckless.
“At some point we are all going to die, so I don’t care whether I live or die.”
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Originally published as ‘Child Safety is a terrible parent’: Cairns street kid on crime crisis
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