Career Criminals In The Making

Here are some statistics that make you wonder about the parenting skills of some Australians. To be fair it might not be the parents per se, it might just be the case that these youngsters are beyond the control of parents who may feel like they have tried everything and still not managed to bring their children into some kind of respectable line.

NSW police are apprehending, on average, more than 50 children per week for sexual and other assaults, theft, armed robbery, drug dealing, and murder. What is even more scary in these statistics is that during the period from 1 January 2005 to 30 September 2007 some 7,724 offences were recorded by children under the age of 10. This is one of those moments where you close your eyes and go, "what?"

The statistics were obtained by News Ltd under a Freedom of Information request and show one murder by a 10-year-old, 1,109 assaults and 141 sexual assaults, including 31 by 8-year olds. At 8 years old I cannot even recall if I was thinking about girls let alone wanting to be involved in a sexual assault. I cannot even remembering wanting to assault anyone at that age. I mean the closest I might have come to an assault conviction could have been a punch up or two in high school. But most of the violence I was involved in was good wholesome fun on the rugby field and this was generally referred to as a crunching tackle.

Yet, the craziness continues as the statistics also highlight that there were 584 driving offences, of which 113 were by 8-year olds.

The question is what to do about this worsening juvenile crime wave as for those that are aged of 10 might get a Children's Court date which for first time offenders generally results in a slap on the wrist (this is the case for second and third time offenders as well depending on the offence).

However, for those under the age of 10 the current practice is to call in the parents, lecture the child on the evil of their ways and where this type of conduct will lead them and then release them back into the custody of their parents. Sometimes the Department of Community Services (DoCS) might become involved. Yet, DoCS are woefully under-funded and under-staffed as some of their more recent and public failings highlight.

Former Children's Court magistrate Barbara Holborow said, "I don't know whether it's because so many parents are working by necessity, loss of parents' rights, poor discipline at home or whatever, but something is wrong," ya think? no kidding!

Naming & Shaming

A recent report in New South Wales (that's in Australia for my international visitors not familiar with my history) by a State Parliamentary Committee has rejected calls for the naming and shaming of juvenile offenders. This is a good move!

The issue must revolve on whether there are any identifiable long-term benefits from naming and shaming juvenile offenders, and if there is not then why change the current practice of protecting the identities of offenders. The second issue that must be considered is whether there is any additional justice for the victims of crime in seeing the juvenile offender named and shamed.

Finally, perhaps we need to ask ourselves why we want to name and shame juvenile offenders? Is it to punish the offender or is it to embarrass the parents of the offender by highlighting that they must be bad parents and have done a poor job because the child has turned out to be a criminal? If it is to shame the parents then this is the wrong approach!

Some parents try really hard to be good parents and some times it just does not work out for them no matter how hard they try. Some parents may in fact just be bad parents in terms of they do not have the necessary parenting skills to be a good parent...perhaps more government money at parent training might be an option.

The general belief is that naming a child offender will increase the likelihood of re-offending. Nevertheless, this might need to be balanced against the vindication that victims of crime might feel in seeing the perpetrator of the crime against them named. However, it is worth noting that the use of victim conferencing has been successful as the format allows for victims to directly confront the perpetrator of that crime.

In any event this is an argument that is likely to rage on as juveniles continue to commit crimes from the petty to the serious. Yet, the current law prevents anyone under 18 years of age being identified.