Juvenile justice has been ordered to make a $ 17.2 million cut in spending because of the parlous level of state finance. As part of this they have announced that they will close the Keelong Juvenile Justice centre in Wollongong from early next year.
Keelong is the only juvenile detention centre in this area. It employs a hundred people and has twenty-three beds for offenders, but often is called upon to house thirty inmates.
The department promises that it will expand by creating eighty new detainee beds in other state centres, but most people will take this with a grain of salt. If it can not afford to keep an existing centre open, how will it finance an expansion at other centres which are already bursting at the seams ?
The losers will be the citizens of this state who will experience an surge of crime by juvenile offenders who should be behind bars - but will be granted parole simply because there is no accommodation to hold them.
Several years ago the government promised a crackdown on lenient parole after case after case was paraded before the media of young offenders using the revolving door system of parole to continue their criminal activities.
It was promised that those who failed to appear in court - and those who committed any sort of further crime when on parole - would have the privilege withdrawn and would await their court appearance behind bars.
It didn't happen ! Those on the bench had no option other than to grant parole because the state lacked the facilities to house such juveniles.
Now we are about to see an extension of lenient parole because of the Keelong closure.
Citizens can look forward to a surge in car stealing, break enter and steal - and perhaps more violent crime because the justice system lacks teeth and is unable to deliver the punishment it promises.
This government has a strange sense of priorities !
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