I’m going to give a view.
It’s a personal point of view, sometimes with sweeping generalisations. It’s also not based on statistical evidence but more on trends and observations. It’s based on one state and not necessarily transferable to situations in other states. In short, it’s a limited, “ignorant” view.
I spent forty years in the juvenile justice system. There are some things that were constants:
First Australians have always been overrepresented in the system.
White Australians from low socio‑economic backgrounds have always been overrepresented in the system.
The prison population often reflects significant changes in terms of new arrivals from specific regions — especially war‑torn areas.
Changes in governments may increase or decrease the prison population, but do they have a dramatic effect on the crime rate? If we “lock them up,” there will always be someone ready to step up and fill the void.
It seems to me that the elephant in the room — the thing we’re not really saying out loud — is the influx of East Africans in Victoria and some of the more violent attacks (machetes, etc.). Please correct me if I’m wrong; I’m observing this from a distance.
I’m sure I’ve written something like this before, and there may be some variation as the memory fades.
Over the years, there have been significant changes to the ethnic backgrounds of the kids I observed in correction.
When I first started, the group was mainly as I mentioned above: Aboriginal kids and those from poor economic backgrounds — and there was a large overlap. It was a welfare issue as much as a criminal issue. If kids lacked family support, it was considered that the best place for them was an institution. “Neglect” was actually a charge that a child could be locked up for — not the parent, the child.
The group I had at the time (late seventies) were mostly Western Sydney kids — Mt Druitt, St Marys. You didn’t get many from Vaucluse. There was also a group of Eastern Europeans, but at that stage they were not significant compared to the others.
The early 1980s saw an increase in the number of Vietnamese kids. While significant at the time, it wasn’t a long‑lasting trend.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, we saw an increase in kids from the former Yugoslavia as ethnic violence there forced many families to flee the region.
From 2000 until the time I finished, there was a dramatic increase in our Middle Eastern population. Another group that seemed to increase was the Pacific Islander group. (That last group doesn’t fit my narrative, but I’ll add it before I make the point.)
The point is that these increases in the general population — and in prison populations — almost always occurred alongside significant breakdowns or violent wars in their countries of origin. Death and violence were often everyday occurrences. Some of these kids and their families saw things we would never wish to see.
If I walked into the same institutions today, I’d probably see a significant increase in the East African population — yet during my forty years I can only remember one. (He was a bit of a character, and they had no idea of his birthday. I reckon I was still teaching him well into his twenties.)
The thing is that, over time, these issues regarding the ethnicity of prison populations tend to follow the same patterns as society in general, and they usually resolve — sometimes being replaced by the arrival of a new group of troubled settlers.
Political parties will talk tough on law and order. I remember that a change of government (of whichever persuasion) meant the institutions would fill up overnight or empty out. It usually only took a month or two for things to stabilise and return to normal.
Don’t take much notice of any group who tells you they will be tough on crime. The possible solution — and it’s by no means an easy one — starts long before the criminal acts occur.
The perception of a bias possibly exposes a misunderstanding of the generalised mandatory reporting that is in place in Victoria, that is not the same in other states by the way, at least not yet.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but my understanding the Vic child protection act requires it for all child or youth crime, while and the public assume mandatory reporting only means mandatory reporting of child abuse. That means in Vic the mandatory reporting laws mean mandatory reporting of all children and youths involved in crime as well, they assume a child or youth involved in crime is a victim of some circumstance.
That is not the case in all Australian states, where officers have discretion over reporting in many cases, it's one of the big Federal issues to get it all standardized in the long term. Uniforms laws and reporting across Australia, but it's not there yet.
If you are in doubt, you can always get it clarified by Bec Judd!
