Victorian Labor passes law to imprison more children
Victoria’s Labor government has rammed through new bail laws that will send hundreds of children to prison. The move is a capitulation to the frenzied campaign about a supposed crime wave in Melbourne. Started by the Liberals and sustained by the corporate media, the campaign has included relentless coverage of a small number of crimes committed by disenfranchised young people.
It would be easy to conclude from the reporting that Melbourne was beginning to resemble a warlord-run failed state. But Australia remains one of the safest places on earth, and the number of offenders per capita continues to fall. To the extent that there is a slight uptick in reported crime, it primarily relates to retail theft and vehicle-related crimes.
More than one-third of car-related thefts involve people stealing number plates. The next biggest issue is power tools taken from the back of utes. Eighty-three percent of these car-related crimes show no sign of forced entry. As desperate as TV studios are for content, even they couldn’t spin a police procedural out of this stuff.
And when it comes to retail theft, it’s obvious to anyone with two brain cells to put together that it is a result of poverty and disadvantage. If that sounds too much like socialist propaganda, listen to Deputy Police Commissioner Neil Paterson.
“We know that research shows that when there are higher cost-of-living pressures [and] higher interest rates, that is directly linked to crime rates”, he said in December.
Much of the crime discussion has centred on a small group of kids, about 300 or so, who are repeat offenders. Paterson described this cohort as “living lives of pretty serious disadvantage”. Indigenous kids and those from working-class and oppressed migrant backgrounds are more likely to get trapped in these kinds of destructive cycles.
Without knowing the details of these children, we can reasonably assume that they need support, including financial security, permanent housing, assistance with education and vocational pathways, ongoing therapy and more.
The problem is that support costs money. For decades, the government has refused to invest properly in public schools, either in the facilities or the teaching and support staff who can assist troubled kids in getting settled and learning. It has steadily undermined public housing stock—and now plans to demolish the major towers across the city—which means there’s nowhere for these kids or their families to go in an emergency.
And everyone knows that it is nearly impossible to get regular access to mental health services unless you can afford a fortune in fees. Abysmally low welfare payments set by the federal government regularly leave teenagers and their families in terrible situations, without access to healthy food and other essentials.
Rather than addressing these things, Premier Jacinta Allen is sacrificing these kids on the altar of public relations. The ALP’s legislation, with the deliberately villainous title “Tough Bail Laws”, is an attempt to silence the Liberal Party’s criticism of the state government. But like every ALP concession to Liberal Party bigotry, it will simply encourage the right to demand even more draconian policy.
In the meantime, our most vulnerable and traumatised children will be condemned to a lifetime in and out of the prison system.
