Page 4255 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Stefaniak is right in saying that the persons who are likely to get fines are likely to be people above 15 years. We are not talking about seven- or eight-year-olds. Indeed, he is right in saying that some of these people may be fairly tough cookies. Butter may not necessarily melt in their mouths. But the fact remains that there is a power now. If they want to wilfully say, "I am going to ignore the fine. I am going to tell the court to go stuff it", what will happen is that they will come back before the magistrate and there will be a range of options.
The first option would be community service orders. That, for young people, can be a particularly effective deterrent, if you like, because it deprives them of doing pleasant things on the weekend. So, that is an option. But at the end of the day detention is an option. Detention can be an option in the ACT.
In New South Wales there is still provision for detention; but again it is only after all options have been exhausted, and I went through this the other night. Throughout Australia the move has been to use imprisonment for fine default for young people as an absolute last option. Indeed, the same is occurring for adult fine default. Imprisonment is seen as a last option.
Mr Stefaniak's amendment really seeks to go against the tide of enlightened opinion throughout Australia in every State and Territory and move to take imprisonment as the first option for fine default. It is an unenlightened policy. It is a policy, in the long run, destructive of the interests of young people in this Territory, because it will have more of them in places of incarceration rather than fewer of them in places of incarceration, which ought to be the attitude of an enlightened Assembly.
I would confidently hope that this amendment will not be supported by those enlightened members of this Assembly who acknowledge that the answer to problems facing young people, and behavioural problems that may cause them to come into conflict with the law, is not the "lock them up and throw away the key approach", not the "let's get tough" approach, but a more enlightened and caring approach to issues of juvenile crime.
MR DUBY (12.20): I also do not support the amendment moved by Mr Stefaniak. The amendment that Mr Stefaniak wishes to make is to section 54 of the principal Act. He seeks to have subsections (3) to (6) inclusive deleted. Those particular provisions of the Act are quite specific in providing courts with a wide range of options in dealing with costs and children. I think that is another point that needs to be made out. The fact is that we are dealing with children, even though some of them, as Mr Connolly may have said, are perhaps 17 or going on 18, and may be tough cookies. The bottom line is that they still, according to the law, are children, and in my view they should be treated as such.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .