NT youth crime law change to see kids ineligible for prison alternatives
The Youth Justice Regulations 2006 amendments will see more crimes classified as "serious", making young people who commit them ineligible for youth diversion.
The youth diversion program connects children with not-for-profit community groups, rather than making them go to court, for certain offences.
The program can only be undertaken twice before the offender has to go down the criminal justice route.
The NT government said under the changes, 13 more offences "will now have a default position of proceeding to charge".
Those offences are:
Speaking in Alice Springs on Friday morning, Chief Minister and Police Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the legislative amendments had been requested by the NT Police Force (NTPF).
She said the territory government was "taking strong action to break the cycle of youth crime and restore community safety".
"The CLP government will not tolerate repeat offenders and their apologists putting community safety last," the chief minister said.
"Police are being forced to divert without any opportunity to exercise their discretion.
NT Police Acting Commissioner Martin Dole said their officers were "crying out for stronger measures and options" to deal with "recidivist and high-risk youth offenders".
"Our police, that are experts — that deal with this day in, day out — across the Northern Territory have said 'we need stronger legislation, we need amendments'," he said.
Youth justice advocates have been swift to criticise the planned changes.
Blair McFarland, an Alice Springs social worker and past NT Australian of the Year, said the amendments were a "desperate" attempt for the Country Liberal Party (CLP) government to fulfil its tough-on-crime election promises.
"It's not going to do anything to actually address the social problems that are creating all the crime," he said.
"They were going to clean up the streets [which are] getting worse and worse, which is something [the CLP] inherited, it's not new.
"The problem is way bigger than this tiny little fragment [of 13 offences].
The long-time Alice Springs local said the amendments would have no impact on youth crime rates.
Ally Sara, a spokesperson for advocacy group Justice Not Jails, said the NT government was "fast-tracking kids into a cycle of incarceration and offending".
"We know that once kids enter the prison system, it's extremely hard to keep them out," she said.
"If the CLP wants to get serious about 'breaking the cycle of youth crime', taking away diversionary methods is about the worst thing they could do."
Another spokesperson for the group, Anna Sri, said diversion was already being "significantly under-utilised".
"Through these amendments, the CLP is essentially conceding its only vision for addressing crime consists of unrestrained incarceration, despite the overwhelming evidence that incarceration doesn't work," she said.
Asked about calls from human rights experts for the arrest and detention of children to only occur as a "last resort", Ms Finocchiaro said "activists and people around the world can make whatever comment they like", but she was focusing on "the people of the Northern Territory".
The chief minister said the territory had failed to hold young people accountable and, "as a result, they feel like they're above the law".
She said the $1.5 billion the CLP had invested in the NT's justice system was "the largest law and order funding in territory history".
"We've come to government in August last year and seen that the entire justice system is in collapse," Ms Finocchiaro said.
When questioned on allegations that some young people were being kept in detention for lengthy periods due to capacity and funding challenges — with court data showing the average remand time for young people in the NT is now 51 days — Ms Finocchiaro pointed to the CLP's masterplan for corrections and its opening of the 16-bed Paperbark centre.
"Relocating [Paperbark] into a purpose-built facility, alongside a youth remand centre here in Alice Springs, [will] better support young people into different pathways," she said.
"This is all part of a bigger story around making sure that we're supporting our community to be safe, that we're intervening early, that we're holding parents accountable, and that we're delivering the consequences young people need to make better choices."
Critics are concerned that removing youth diversion as an option for more offences could lead to additional pressure on an already-strained court system.
Data from NT courts shows the number of assault matters lodged in the Youth Justice Court— one of the 13 charges set to change under the amendments — has jumped 45 per cent since the previous financial year.
It also shows there were more than 18,800 listings of criminal and domestic violence matters in the Youth Justice Court in the past financial year.
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