Discovering Balance
Abstracts - Youth and justice stream
Session 7 Breakout 8, 1.30-3.30pm, ECL2 - Chair: Dr Yvonne Haigh.
Question time is included at the end of the breakout session
Preventing Crime and Promoting Rights for Indigenous Young People with Cognitive Disabilities and Mental Health Problems
Ms Emilie Priday (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission)
This paper will present some key findings from a report prepared by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission on early intervention and diversion of Indigenous young people with cognitive disabilities and mental health problems from the juvenile justice system. Indigenous young people with cognitive disabilities or mental health problems are a largely forgotten group. Despite the fact that many of the causes of offending behaviour lie in the early years, all too often, early identification, early intervention and diversionary opportunities pass these young people by. This increases the likelihood that they will progress to the juvenile justice system and beyond that into the adult criminal justice system. However, our research points to a Human Rights based approach to create a framework for intervention at different points of the life course. To illustrate how a Rights based approach works, this paper will focus on specific examples from promising restorative justice practices.
Session 7, Breakout 8
Date & Time: Friday 3 October (1.30pm)
Location: ECL2
Indigenous Youth, Incarceration Rates and Restorative Justice in Western Australia
Magistrate Dean Potter (Children's Court Perth WA)
Rates of incarceration of Indigenous youth in Western Australia continue to remain unacceptably and, to some extent, inexplicably high. Indigenous persons make up only 3% of the overall WA population, however, incarceration rates of Indigenous youth at the two State detention facilities sit in the order of 60-80%. These figures can be traced back now for at least the past fifteen years and certainly well within the timeframe of the implementation of restorative justice principles in Western Australian juvenile justice. The courts and police use conferencing programs with increasing frequency but incarceration rates remain relatively stagnant. Does Restorative Justice have a role to play in breaking these alarmingly consistent figures? Is it a panacea for what is seemingly an intractable problem? Is there more that can be done within the scope of Restorative Justice to make in-roads in reducing these figures? Or is it simply beyond the reach of RJ per se and to suggest otherwise is to hold out false hope.
Session 7, Breakout 8
Date & Time: Friday 3 October (1.50pm)
Location: ECL2
When the rubber hits the road - or does it? A three-part cameo on young people and public space
PICYS (Perth Inner City Youth Service)
We are told it takes a village to raise a child. Research about the "village" is extensive -the loss of natural supports to the role of parent and the need for new forms of extended family [Margaret Mead] - parent overload and the need for a family friendly environment [Dr Don Edgar] - need for a sense of belonging [Richard Eckersley] - social capital and "blaming" [Dr Ron Labonte] - going beyond the fish to look at the river [Davies]. Such research is stacked high in tertiary institutions. In public life much of this rubber fails to hit the road. The journey from research to policy implementation is fraught with political potholes. Curfews and move-on notices give a message of non-belonging and run counter to the developmental needs of young people. This session presents cameos with youth workers, parents, young people and audience of where the "village" can do better.
Session 7, Breakout 8
Date & Time: Friday 3 October (2.10pm)
Location: ECL2
Don't know or don't care? Problems in high places
Rev George Davis (Consultant, PICYS)
Prominent figures pontificate on youth and related issues demonstrating "unconscious incompetence" - when, as Donald Rumsfeld puts it, "we don't know what we don't know". Premiers, police superintendents and philanthropists influence the public with their views on crime, graffiti, parents, drugs, streets and more. Their superficial understanding is echoed in letters to editors and on talk-back radio programmes. Rev George Davies will use his long experience in the youth field to identify examples of public ignorance and ask where it comes from and what we can do about it. Charles Court, Richard Court, Brian Burke, Peter Dowding, Alan Carpenter, Karl O'Callaghan, Jack Bendat and others have been superficial in addressing issues to do with young people and families. Are they too busy to familiarise with the research, or simply too distant from the realities. Do they want to know what they don't know? What can we do about it when we understand issues more deeply?
Session 7, Breakout 8
Date & Time: Friday 3 October (2.30pm)
Location: ECL2