A leading welfare advocate says a whole of community approach is critical in curbing Victoria’s youth crime crisis.
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Mick Cronin who manages the YMCA Bridge Project which provides creates mentoring, training and employment opportunities for young people who have been in custody. He said understanding the core causes of youth offending prevented disadvantage and criminal behaviour occurring in the first place.
Mr Cronin said young people often got caught in a web of crime and re-offending because they were disengaged from their families and communities.
“Prevention is always better than rehabilitation,” he said. “But it’s also critical that while young people are in custody they are given the opportunity to use their time in prison to prepare to transition back into communities. They need to be given good supporting tools and programs that are going to benefit them, educate them, empower them and give them pathways so they go on to stay released and not continue to commit crimes.”
Last week, a senior prison insider at the Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre said poor top-tier management, lack of staff, lock-down regimes and cuts to education and rehabilitation services have created a pressure-cooker atmosphere that makes riots in Victoria's youth detention centres inevitable. A toxic culture of fear and intimidation has disempowered the youth justice workforce, the insider said.
Meanwhile, the state government has announced it is moving responsibility for the youth justice system from the Department of Health and Human Services to Corrections Victoria, part of the Department of Justice.
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews also announced the government would build a new high security prison in Melbourne's outer south-west, and will eventually close down the troubled Parkville youth justice centre. The 224-bed youth justice facility is expected to cost more than $288 million.
It comes as Ombudsman Deborah Glass released a reporting warning the state government against knee-jerk response to the crisis in youth justice, saying all efforts must be made to ensure young offenders were given the best chance to avoid becoming adult criminals. Her report revealed inmates in Victoria's embattled youth justice system have been forced to sleep on the floor and been locked in their cells for nearly 24 hours a day.