The Young Offenders Bill 1997, was well received, due in part to the sound empirical and theoretical foundations of the Bill, and due to the considerable consultation which occurred during and after the development of the Bill. The bi-partisan support for the legislation ensured a relatively smooth passage of the Bill through Parliament.
The Act has now been in operation for just over 12 months and substantial developments have been implemented to support the operation of the Act.
80 Youth Liaison Officers (YLOs) commenced duties in February/March 1998. The YLO position heralds a significant improvement on previous arrangements, as the positions are now dedicated to youth issues, specifically to support the Young Offenders Act; the officers were recruited according to merit selection principles; and have and continue to receive training on youth issues.
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Each YLO has established significant networks within their local communities. These networks, the communication between youth advocates, young people and these officers and the increased knowledge about local services, are all developments which have greatly enhanced the quality of service delivered by the police. This knowledge and understanding of the YLOs about local youth issues, has resulted in greater confidence within the youth sector and has generally facilitated greater communication around potentially contentious issues.
Another significant development, associated with the implementation of the Act, was the establishment of the Legal Aid HotLine. Concerns had been raised prior and subsequent to the introduction of the Act, that young people would be significantly disadvantaged if they were unable to access legal information prior to making an admission. Given that an admission is a mandatory requirement to be eligible for a caution or conference, failure to access legal advice could lead to inappropriate admission or denial by a young person. Consequently, the need to access legal advice is very important.
In response the Legal Aid Commission allocated funding for the establishment of a telephone HotLine. This HotLine operates seven days per week, from 9 am to 12 am weekdays and 12 pm to 12 am, weekends.
The Act also institutes conference schemes administered by the Department of Juvenile Justice, and requires the engagement of non-Public Service Conference Convenors to facilitate youth justice conferences. This requirement was specifically designed to enable the recruitment of a large pool of convenors with insight into local issues. To date, in excess of 350 conference convenors have been recruited and trained across the state. They have been drawn from local communities to ensure that youth justice conferences are community responses to juvenile crime and informed by local knowledge. Such a large pool also enables the matching of convenors with particular conferences. This matching of convenors with the specific needs of conference participants, ensures that each conference is unique.
Given these developments and structures supporting the implementation of the Act, what has been the response to date? Has the Act resulted in greater numbers of young people being diverted from appearing in Court? Is the Act being applied uniformly across the State? Are all young people receiving the benefits of the Act?
While it is very difficult to answer these questions fully at this stage, it is useful to consider some early trends.
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It is apparent that the numbers of young people being diverted have increased significantly since the introduction of the Act in April 1998. However, it also appears that there has been a corresponding increase in the total interventions, largely due to a significant rise from December 1998 to January 1999. Consequently, the proportion of young people diverted from appearing in court has remained relatively stable since the commencement of the Act.
This average rate of diversion, by cautions and conferences, would appear to represent an increase on the number of young people diverted in the years just prior to the introduction of the Act.
While it is encouraging to see that there has been an increase in the total numbers of young people being diverted, it is of concern that this increase has been accompanied by what appears to be an increase in the numbers of young people being formally dealt with by the police. Of even greater concern is that this increase in total intervention numbers has differentially affected young Aborigines. This increase has not been proportionate to the rise in the numbers of Aboriginal young people being formally dealt with. Thus, the increases in total numbers of young people formally dealt with by the police can be partly explained by the substantial increase in the number of Aboriginal young people entering the system.
This is an edited version of a paper presented to an Australian Institute of Criminology Conference in Brisbane on June 18th, 1999.
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