New approaches to solving teen violence...
There is no one quick fix to stop the rising tide of teen violence but there are a few solutions that can help reduce the problem. Philip Jenkinson investigates.
Teen violence is on the rise. Since 1997 the number of young people charged with assault has doubled. Sergeant Scott Weber, vice president of the NSW Police Association, told Today Show viewers in April 2010 that front line police officers see the problem every day. “There are youths out there absolutely running amok and out of control. We have problems with alcohol, and also what we’re seeing out there is an increase in the amount of violence and also the ferocity of it.”
“There are lots of glassings but also it’s more a group of people on one person, stomping on heads, kicking people while they are down. You just didn’t see this ten, fifteen years ago, and if you did see it, it wasn’t the norm that it definitely is now. So we’re having a lot of issues with youths. And the other thing is, they’re starting to learn the system. Many of them know they will just get a slap on the wrist when they are charged with assault.”
Parenting expert, Maggie Dent, also believes the issue has worsened. She sees the reason as societal and parental, and also shared her view on the subject on national TV. “In our world we’ve become so busy that we don’t have the time, especially in the early years to develop the emotional competence for us to be decent human beings later in life.”
“And then we have a world of course that is full of senseless violence. Children are watching revolting things, over and over again, and have become completely desensitised to violence. You add that to the computer games where you kill people for fun and the brain changes in kids, and we’re now wearing the consequences.”
Former NSW Children’s Magistrate, Barbara Holborow, also shared her views on youth violence on the recent Today Show segment. “Things have changed unbelievably. It’s frightening what’s happening. When I first went on the bench, it was blowing up a letterbox on cracker night or detonators on a railway line. Nothing like this. Nothing.
She believes we don’t need harsher penalties than the law already provides for, but that “we just need to apply them. Kids are just leaving the court and sticking their fingers up at the camera and saying I knew I’d get bail.”
So what are some of the solutions?
Barbara Holborow believes that “we don’t need to lock up parents after the event.” Instead she suggests that to prevent further assaults from occurring, more diversionary programs need to be made available for magistrates, and a special ‘youth squad’ within the police force should be set up in every state.
Furthermore, Ms Holborow proposes that where there is a curfew in place, these ‘youth police’ would then return teens, who are breaking it by being out after hours, to their parents and give them a ‘yellow card’. If it happens again, the teen would then get a ‘red’ card and they have to go before the courts.
She concedes it would take significantly more funding to do this but cites an overall cost saving by doing so. “It costs millions to lock these kids up,” she said, “and what does it achieve? The damage is done. People are permanently injured.”
In New South Wales at least, Sergeant Weber from the state’s Police Association believes some headway is already being made. “It’s difficult but our youth liaison officers are addressing the issue with police initiatives such as midnight basketball, night time patrols, curfews, and making sure that youths have good parental supervision.”
“But what we also need are preventative strategies and that involves perhaps charity work through the schools, also involving sporting teams, and getting their peers and the whole community involved in regards to reducing this problem with youth crime.”
One low-profile youth support organisation that does dare to understand the teenage mind and celebrate the contribution that young people can bring to society, is Young Life Australia. Glyn Henman, the CEO, believes that teenagers are crying out for good role modelling and understanding from adults.
“Prevention is more achievable than cure, and a whole lot cheaper for society too,” observes CEO of Young Life Australia, Glyn Henman. “So steering young vulnerable people away from life’s more dangerous dead-ends is not only good for the teenager involved, but for their friends, their family, their street, and their suburb as well.”
“Not that all the teenagers we come into contact with, in the high schools where we work and the after school youth clubs we run, have taken a wrong turn in life,” says Henman. “In fact, far from it. Most of the young people we interact with are happy and fairly well adjusted. What all are seeking though is more focus and a sense of meaning in their lives, along with acceptance and understanding from adults.”
Maggie Dent, the Queensland-based parenting expert, has written many articles on the subject, and on national TV recently, she stressed the need for more support mechanisms and youth programs to be made available at the community level to provide safe places and support for young people.
“As a society we are not meeting the needs of our adolescents, particularly our boys. How can we support these young lads to turn into good men, because they are wired to be warriors and they are biologically meant to take risks. But we have taken all those places of safe risk taking out of school environments and we’ve got to make them feel they belong.”
“We know that the more they feel they belong, they have value, and they are meaningfully involved… the less violence… the less anger. And parents are part of that, but adolescents step back from their parents a little in adolescence, but we’re not there for them. We’re not collectively creating a network of adults who care about young people enough, to help them make mistakes, learn from it, grow from it, and not turn into criminals.”
Glyn Henman from Young Life is appalled by how judgemental society is. “It’s easy to write-off an entire generation and the Gen-Y bashers in general and those who refuse to even try and understand teenagers, just don’t get it at all. Our people go and mix in the world of young people, at high schools, on the sporting field, a church hall that hasn’t been used in ages, the local shops, and wherever young people hang out.”
“Having fun is not dependant on dropping pills, getting drunk, or glassing someone,” says Henman. “We provide safe places for teenagers to express themselves in crazy exuberant ways where alcohol or drugs are not present. It’s a tribe thing, and the tribe does not require artificial stimulants when life can be this stimulating!”
“We help put the pieces together in a young person’s life” adds Henman. “It’s not that the adolescent’s ‘jigsaw puzzle’ is necessarily broken, it’s just incomplete. What’s needed in society right now are more people prepared to get out there at the grass roots level and provide teenagers with self-esteem, a willing ear, a sense of acceptance, good boundary setting skills, respect, and the capacity to help them make good value decisions.”
“This is a rock solid solution to reducing teen violence, malicious damage, theft, and graffiti attacks,” explains Henman. “Because it helps refocus teens on the positives, and reinforces in them, that they are worthy, they are valued, and that they do belong.”
Whether teens are seeking empowerment, answers, or just acceptance, it seems that our society needs to invest more time, more adult mentors, and more money, in order to break down the barriers that exist between young people and the wider adult world.
Source: Channel 9 Today Show 12-4-10 - Maggie Dent, Barbara Holborow, Sergeant Scott Weber; Young Life Australia, Glyn Henman.
Author: Philip Jenkinson 23-4-2010
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