4 February 2006

The Comrade's concern for youth sentenced to detention

| nyssa76
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The ABC has this[story on what the Chief Minister has had] to say on the matter [of youth detention].

He’s concerned as to the fact that youths in the ACT are doubly more likely to be sentenced to detention than those in NSW.

A snippet:

“Mr Stanhope says he wants to find out why Canberra appears to be the toughest jurisdiction in Australia.” – after the Clea Rose case, he has to be joking.

The Comrade should be asking why they being sentenced in the first place, as opposed to why the numbers are twice those of NSW.

What sickens me more is that he’s hinting at an inquiry….more taxpayers money wasted.

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Should read “got drunk on school grounds.” I should type and talk on the phone at the same time.

Please don’t hold your keys for me Heavs.

It is a holiday camp. Where else do the inmates run the assylum?

Thumper, I’ve had kids from south Canberra schools were saying the same. Then again, at another south Canberra school the students got drunk on school groups.

Sorry I was offline for 4 hours. Next time I’ll wait with keys awaiting for your response Nyssa.

Kudos to you for having seen the place. I have as well. It is most definately not a holiday camp. Anywhere where you are locked up and deprived of your liberty isnt’ that much fun. Of course if the kids don’t want to study they don’t have to. You can’t force someone to learn and improve themselves if they don’t want to.

On the flipside I know of a number of kids who finished their studies while in there and once they were out went on to become productive members of society with proper jobs and all.

Interesting how there is no response by Heavs to my last post.

silly me.

It’s essentially meant to be the antithesis of bleeding heart liberal. And while in a uni text book way it might take on Trotskyite approaches (I don’t know entirely what that means), I’m thinking socialism isn’t particularly on the agenda – perhaps a limited form suiting the corporate buddies of the Republicans and ensuring global freedom to shop.

Neh, I’ve decided to expand the definition of neocon to include everything ignorant/rightwing/authoritarian that shits me – sorry, I think I forgot to send you the memo 🙂

less a neo-con issue (neo-cons are mostly apostate trotskyites with strong views on foreign affairs) as it is a classic Laura-Norder one beloved by authoritarians of both left and right.

Akerboltson – heh heh. Nice one Heavs.

I can’t speak to what to the conditions are like in Quamby but overall this thread seems pretty light on for facts and figures.

For what it’s worth, I’d say that any kind of forced incarceration would have to be a lot harder than people make out. The loss of liberty and exposure to potential violence and even sexual abuse is something that shouldn’t be underrated and certainly doesn’t strike me as any sort of holiday.

But as I say, I don’t know much about the specifics here. All this talk about slaps on the wrist and whatnot is classic neocon rhetoric which doesn’t add much to the issue (beyond expressing understandable frustration at the problem perhaps) and fails to pay respect to people who work in this area day by day and tend to have a better idea of how things need to work. imho.

Heavs, I have. The way it is run (educationally-wise) is similar to the now defunct Dairy Flats programme.

I’ve also been asked to go in and teach there.

I still won’t do it.

Does that satisfy you now?

how do you know quamby is a joke? have you spent time there? Talk to someone who has instead of reading your Akerboltson type opinion pieces and you might get a different view of the world.

Quamby is a joke.

We all know that. Hence the “holiday” tag.

ssanta, you’re right about the parents though. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or both of the parents had no respect for the law and/or had served jail time.

make the parents accountable for their childrens actions. tether then moth together. A kid wont be take the chance steal a car while his father is drunk asleep on the couch.

Knowing people that have been in Quamby I wouldn’t exactly call it a holiday farm. Sure it’s easier than doing time in Long Bay but so it should be – despite what the lynch mob is saying these criminals are still only kids with a chance of turning their life around.

Quamby is basically the form of discipline these kids should have got when they were younger enforce on them by fences and gates.

It shouldn’t even get to three strikes.

GBB’s are a joke – everyone knows that.

Why do you think most teachers WON’T apply for Quamby? Because the students see it as a holiday and they don’t want to do any school work.

Get rid of the TVs etc and make them sit in the room with their thoughts. Better yet, set up a conference with the victims (like they do in the US) so that the “child” actually sees the impact their actions have on others.

Enough of this hippie hugging PC BS. It isn’t working.

Should be mandatory sentencing. 3 strikes your out type thing and keep them all locked down with nothing but the discovery channel and text books. Quamby is not a deterant to crime.

Just when I thought Stanhope couldn’t be any softer.

The reason the stats say there are more juveniles sentenced to detention is because after they have been charged on 50 or 60 different occasions and every hand holding hippy power good behaviour bond, supervision order, suspended sentence, set of ‘strict’ bail conditions, or ever faithful ‘proved without conviction’ or ‘proved no penalty’ has been used over and over again they are eventually sentenced to a term of detention far outweighed by the amount of crimes they have committed.

The court imposes these ‘harsh terms of detention’ to scare them straight or teach them a lesson, but what weakling can’t survive a couple of weeks in Quamby after running wild for months without any real punishment ?

They learn nothing and continue to offend, and serve a number of short sentences without breaking a sweat.

Good to see at least some people have the common sense to see what a dreamer Stanhope is. Lets have an inquiry and empty Quamby, watch the crime stats go through the roof and we can all live happily ever after in Stanhope’s fairy filled magical happy land. At least we won’t “appear to be the toughest jurisdiction in Australia.”

What a joker.

Could you spare us all the crocodile tears CM over putting your loyal subjects in the slammer.

If you are that concerned about the incarceration of your subjects why are you building the Hume Hilton?

The cost benefit show you will need at least a 50% increase in the ACT prison population to make this spectacular waste of (our money) sorry your subjects tributes cost effective to run.

This is will of course be on top of what will be a spectacular build cost but who needs schools and roads when you can have a state of he art correctional facility run under the country’s only Human Rights Act.

What a kinder gentler prison the ACT’s criminal fraternity can enjoy instead of all that harsh treatment up the road.

Lies, dam lies, and statistics.

does anyone know if all the little darlings who get “no recorded conviction” are skewing the stats?

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