Two north Queensland mayors say children as young as eight are roaming the streets at night due to a lack of safety at home, amid a 15% rise in reported domestic violence cases across the state.
Appearing before a parliamentary inquiry into proposed youth crime laws – including a heavily criticised attempt to make breach of bail an offence for children – the mayor of Cairns regional council, Bob Manning, said many young offenders have an unsafe home environment.
“Many of these young people are not in the control of their parents and are out on the streets committing some crimes,” he told a hearing in Cairns on Wednesday.
The Mareeba shire mayor, Angela Toppin, called for the government to fund a drop-in centre for at-risk youth and expand funding of the Police Citizens Youth Club, which currently only has the resources to operate until 8.30pm.
“I will not be lying to you as a committee if I say to you that some of our young people – eight, nine, 10-year-olds – are out in the streets late at night because the level of domestic violence in their home is such that they are unsafe,” Toppin said.
“It worries me greatly.”
However, Toppin said harsher penalties may be needed for young people who continually commit crimes.
“I will be the very first to say to you that we need to look at diversion at the early start of the youth crime, but if they continue along this path … then there needs to be something stronger to deter that,” she said.
It comes after the government introduced a controversial suite of measures to crack down on youth crime last week, which included the breach of bail offence and expanding an electronic monitoring trial for children as young as 15.
Other measures to be introduced by the government include a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment for car theft, a maximum 14-year penalty for violent offences or crimes committed at night and increased penalties for criminals who boast about their offences on social media.
Perri Conti, a Cairns resident and a victim of crime, said the measures were ineffective and children are only “doing what they can to survive”.
Conti said children are stealing cars for a safe place to sleep and stealing food and clothes because child safety workers are “not issuing … [the] basic necessities for these kids under their care”.
“These kids deserve a better life. They didn’t ask to be born into this. They weren’t born being bad,” she told the hearing.
Conti said while she agreed breach of bail should be made an offence for kids, she did not believe they should be penalised for being out late if they were escaping an unsafe environment.
“We are demanding a royal commission into … [residential care] and detention alternatives,” Conti said.
On Wednesday Queensland police revealed they responded to more than 138,000 cases of domestic and family violence (DFV) in the last financial year – an increase of 15% on the previous reporting period.
Inspector Melissa Dwyer said she was “really buoyed” by the figures, as police largely attribute the rise to better reporting of violence against partners and family members.
“We have a better and truer appreciation of what is happening in Queensland homes,” she told reporters.
Dwyer said the scourge of domestic and family violence was “inextricably linked” to youth crime.
“When we look at those statistics – 138,871 DFV occurrences – it is really sobering to remember that there is a victim-survivor in every single one of those circumstances. And a perpetrator. And, invariably, there are children.”
Wayne Wharton, the convener of Brisbane’s Stop Black Deaths In Custody committee, said children were also being harmed by long stays in custody.
“In the last three weeks, some six to eight people younger than 15 [were] locked up in watch houses … for anything from 10 days to 31 days,” Wharton told the committee.
“I think there’s something really broken in terms of the system.”
Doreen Hart, a local commissioner at the Cape York Institute, said she did not support the bill and believes grassroots, community programs better serve the community.
In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org
