I am sick of hearing about the youth crime wave.

 I am sick of hearing about the youth crime wave.

I'm going to say it……..

I'm sick of hearing about the supposed ‘youth crime wave’ which is sweeping Australia.

It appears that every day the news is full of stories that tells us how terrible the young people of Australia are. Every night I turn on the news and there are home videos, stories, and remarks by shock jocks describing what some have called an ‘unprecedented youth crime wave’.

I don't want to take away from individuals personal experience.  Being a victim of crime, whether that be property or violent crime, is a terrible, traumatic event for a person to go through. I know that trauma changes the way that you see the world. Being a victim of crime, forces individuals to question not only their view of the world, but their view of safety, their community, and those people around then.

However, it's important to note that the statistics just do not support these headlines.

Youth offending is fallen across most Australian jurisdictions in the last decade. Over a period of 10 years the rate of young people preceded against by police has declined by 36%. This is a trend that's being seen around the world, with most countries experiencing a consistent decline in proceedings against young people. For example, in Canada, committing offences reported by police fell by 48%. In England and Wales, the number of young people entering the youth justice system for the first time fell by 86% and the number of total proven offences fell by 75%. In the United States, the number of young people arrested fell by 60%.

As the number of young people coming to the attention of police in Australia is declined over the last decade or so, the number of young people entering the youth justice system has also fallen. On an average day in 2009, there were 27 per 10,000 young people under some form of youth justice supervision throughout Australia.  Today that is fallen to 21 per 10,000 young people come up which is a decline of 22%.

There's also been several reviews and inquiries into this train youth justice system. Every state, and the Northern Territory have instigated these reviews and inquiries after high profile adverse incidents - such as riots - in youth detention centres.

Running through many of these recent review’s inquiries are a number of common themes and common differences:

• young people who enter the youth justice systems, especially those who served some. In detention - either on remand while they wait a court appearance or one sentence - frequently present within array of ONR abilities and complex needs.

• These vulnerabilities might be exasperated by spending time in custody, especially in segregation and isolation. This is particularly the case for Aboriginal young people, who continue to being massively overrepresented in the youth justice system across Australia.

• It is also being found that youth justice detention centres in the Northern Territory were completely ‘not fit’ for accommodating young people, let alone rehabilitating them. It also found sustained patterns of abuse, humiliation, denial of basic human needs, and long lasting physical and psychological damage. The detention centres were described as ‘appalling’, ‘unsatisfactory’, ‘unsuitable’, ‘oppressive’, ‘appalling’, ‘dangerous’ and ‘deplorable’ by witnesses to the Commission.

Now don't get me wrong………

I used to work in a juvenile detention centre. I contributed to the establishment of the centre, worked as a youth worker, team leader, and manager of the centre over a seven year.

I was spat on.

I was abused. I had my family threatened.

I was in one shift, beaten with a fire extinguisher buy a 19-year-old man.

I know of at least three, Indigenous young people who had long and repeated periods of custody within the detention centre that I worked, that have since tragically taken their own lives and added to the appalling Aboriginal deaths in custody statistics that we have within this country.

Like the numerous reviews and inquiries that have been held by States and territories into youth detention centres, I support the idea that detention should be used as a last resort. I accept that in some cases, there is a need to detain some young people. However, in these circumstances, every effort should be made to enhance the experience.

When I worked in a youth detention centre, I worked with young people who had committed murder, rape, and awesome. I worked with one young offender who had stabbed Over 30 times. I worked with another offender who had cut from ear to ear the throat of one of his peers.  I worked with a young man who raped an 84-year-old woman.

But the fact is most young people that I worked with were not these types of offenders. They were offenders who were incarcerated due to their inability to meet bail conditions on repeated occasions. These are young people who are incarcerated due to the community’s inability to ensure that they were cared for properly.

These are not hard and criminals.

the system is what made them harder than criminals. The system is what made them repeat offenders. Offenders within the juvenile system, who then graduated to the adult system. Now every day I read the local paper, and the crime section is full of adult offenders who were in the juvenile system due to minor offences.

I'm sure that you're wondering to yourself why it is that I stated that these young people were incarcerated due to the ‘communities’ inability to ensure that they were cared for properly.

Why did I not just say their family? Isn't it the family’s responsibility to ensure that these young people are cared for?

Well sometimes it's not.

When families are uncapable, unable, or unwilling to look after the young people……. it is the community's responsibility. It is the community's responsibility to provide educational and housing programmes which fit the need for young people, rather than adult programmes which adjust ‘dumbed down’ for people under the age of 18.

It is the community's responsibility when families do not look after their young people to ensure that the care and housing that's applied to them through a residential foster care system this safe, is free from abuse, and provides them with the skills necessary to be all that they can be.

it is the responsibility of the community to ensure that when young people who did not have the support of the family that should provide them with the care that they need continue to provide that young person support rather than disregard them the day they turn 18.

I didn't wake up on my 18th birthday with all the knowledge that I needed to be a successful adult.

My 30-year-old still brings me and asks, how long it takes to boil an egg, can you put dishwashing tablets in the washing machine, and asks for advice regarding relationships, work, and generally the world.

But we expect young people who have experienced trauma, who have no family support, to know everything that they should know to become productive adults in our community the day that they turn 18.

I don't want to hear about the youth crime wave anymore. But the fact is the youth crime wave isn't occurring. The statistics don't support this sensationalist reporting.

Instead, what I want to hear about is how the community is going to take responsibility for children and young people whose families don't provide them with the sport, safety, and opportunities that they deserve.

Niki