Picture each day knowing you’re likely to deal with a kid who bites the inside of his mouth enough to make it bleed and then spits in your face. That’s a daily reality for officers in the NSW juvenile justice system. It’s not just spitting. Biting, punching and kicking are common.
Members of our union tell me stories of young offenders using screws between their fingers as make-shift knuckle dusters. Or light filaments unscrewed and used as weapons. Threats of cutting out tongues or chopping off heads are par for the course. At one centre there are more than 20 officers off on workers’ compensation.
The Public Service Association recorded more than 70 violent incidents against staff in the past six months, for a statewide offender population of 280. Those are the ones that were reported.
We estimate violence against our members has trebled in the three years since Corrections NSW took over control of the Kariong centre on the Central Coast from Juvenile Justice NSW. Previously, Kariong had been used to manage high-risk juvenile offenders.
Violence in juvenile justice is at epidemic levels. It is a symptom of the crisis we are watching unfold in the Berejiklian government’s crippling of Family and Community Services.
There’s a long journey before kids end up in juvie or the prison system. PSA members witness every step on this road.
Take Family and Child Service workers, who spend their days and nights helping our state’s most vulnerable. The government’s relentless cuts and outsourcing of public services mean that opportunities for intervention with these kids are consistently missed.
David Tune’s independent report on child protection, which the government kept secret for 18 months, revealed a system in failure. Of the $1.86 billion the state spent on vulnerable families, $960 million, half, is spent on outsourced, privately provided out-of-home care. It costs nearly double to put a kid in an NGO-run home rather than a FACS-managed service.
The erosion of funding for FACS means it is now a crisis-driven system. Case workers are operating in survival mode, unable to deliver long-term outcomes for anyone.
The proportion of high-risk kids getting to see caseworkers is declining. In 2012/13, 36 per cent of youths deemed at risk of significant harm received face-to-face support. In 2017/18, that crashed to 28.5 per cent.
Instead of early intervention, we see kids follow a well-worn path into the juvenile justice system. Once they’re behind the wire, there is limited rehabilitation, counselling or education opportunities.
There are measures the government could implement right now to reduce violence. The PSA has spent the past two years fighting in the Industrial Relations Court for therapeutic units. These would provide intensive counselling, rehabilitation and education. They would allow staff to properly manage detainees based on the risk they pose to themselves and others.
Both Cobham and Frank Baxter juvenile justice centres have the ability to incorporate these units now. The government should give the order.
An offender in juvenile justice shouldn’t have to enter into the adult prison system before the state will provide them with rehabilitation.
This Opinion written by Stewart Little, General Secretary of the Public Service Association of NSW
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/horror-stories-from-juvie-a-young-offender-s-home-before-long-bay-20190203-p50vfe.html