Police Fire and Emergency management Minister Felix Ellis says no simple solution to youth crime
Police are determined to get on top of a surge in youth crime, but there is no single, simple solution according to Police Minister Felix Ellis said. DETAILS >
Tasmania
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Police are determined to get on top of a surge in youth crime, but there is no single, simple solution, Police, Fire and Emergency Management Minister Felix Ellis says.
The Mercury on Monday reported retailers and their staff are being “bullied, harassed and threatened” by gangs of young people in Hobart’s key retail precincts.
Mr Ellis said cracking down on youth offending was more than just a matter of putting more police on the beat.
“We’re extremely concerned about youth offending at the moment. Tasmania police are putting significant resources into this area,” he said.
“This is particularly around a small group of repeat offenders committing a high number of crimes in this space.
“Poverty is a factor in a range of different crimes, broken families is a factor, drug use among our young people is a factor, can I say even social media is a factor at the moment where we’re seeing a number of these crimes with young people, effectively glorifying their criminal acts on social media.”
Mr Ellis said just as there were multiple causes of youth crime, the response had to be multifaceted.
“Our government’s doing major work in terms of a youth justice blueprint because we want to make sure that we are catching young people when they are committing criminal acts,” he said.
“We’re tough on crime, but also that we have a strong rehabilitative stance as well,” he said.
“We want these young people to have the best shot at life and we need to make those key interventions so that we can turn their lives around and get them back on the rails.
“The worst thing that we can do for young people would be to teach them that there’s no consequences for their actions. So we need to step forward and make sure that we’re keeping Tasmanian safe.”
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