There’s not much to say about this story except that it is utterly outrageous:
An Aboriginal boy, 12, will face a children’s court today charged with receiving a stolen Freddo frog.
The chocolate frog, allegedly shoplifted by the child’s friend from a Coles supermarket in regional Western Australia, usually sells for about 70 cents.
The boy, who has no prior convictions, also faces a second charge involving the receipt of a novelty sign from another store. The sign, which was also allegedly given to the boy by his friend, read: ”Do not enter, genius at work.”
The boy’s lawyer, Peter Collins, has lobbied WA police for the charges to be withdrawn, but authorities had failed to respond to his request, he said.
The objects of criminal law are deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation and keeping dangerous criminals out of society. On every level this charge is a BIG FAIL. In terms of retribution and deterrence, it’s seriously disproportionate, like using a bulldozer to catch a butterfly. The kid didn’t even commit the primary offence. In terms of rehabilitation, it is also terrible. Charging the kid is a great way to destroy the kid’s life forever. And then the aim of keeping dangerous criminals out of society – really, the police would be better off concentrating on people who impose harm on society rather than persecuting this poor kid.
If I were the Children’s Court judge hearing this, I’d make my thoughts on the matter very plain to the police prosecutor.
The worst thing is the racial subtext to this whole thing. Indigenous children are vastly overrepresented in gaols. Children’s rights campaigner John Fogarty said:
”If this was a non-indigenous child, the most he would probably get in Victoria and most other jurisdictions, would be the mildest of warnings by the local sergeant.”
And rightly so. There is a discretion as to how to respond to offences like this, and a gentle warning is far more appropriate for a child who has no prior offences and who was a mere recipient of stolen goods.
25 Comments
Is there something like a 3-strikes/mandatory sentencing thing that could come into play here?
Dave, not as far as I can see. The child has been charged with two offences of receiving stolen property (the chocolate frog and the novelty sign).
It just seems absolutely absurd. And if there is mandatory sentencing, then a case like this highlights the iniquity of such a practice.
Four Corners has recently featured a couple of programs on casual racism causing death of ATSIs. I found them gripping. One was about a black guy in WA being transported in a private security van w/o air conditioning. The heat killed him. Another was about the deaths of TSI’s on unseaworthy patrol boats whose pleas for help were ignored until it was too late.
I don’t think current day racism is the main cause of indigenous disadvantage but it sure doesn’t help.
Caught in spamulator guys.
This is so absurd I have to suspect we are not being made aware of certain other issues surrounding this matter. I hope so, otherwise the relevant officers and prosecutors need their heads read.
Mel, sorry about our munchalicious spambot, no matter what we do it munches people.
I can’t help thinking of the Palm Island case, where Mulrunji was arrested for swearing at a policeman while drunk, and ended up dead. I’ve seen statistics which say indigenous people are far more likely to be arrested for “public disorder” offences. But clearly these arrests aren’t working to fix anything.
Takes me back to being in law school in the NT when mandatory sentencing was in force. There was a 15 year old kid from a remote community who stole a pencil case. He was flown to Darwin and stuck in Gaol. He hanged himself.
Time was when crap like this was very much a Queensland thing (ah, the joys of growing up in Johland). Unfortunately, it appears to be bloody contagious.
LE@2… no, not three strikes YET (dunno if there is such a thing in NT), but what if he gets caught with a mars bar next time, and, shock horror, a whole box of cheezels the time after that?
I blogged a little on this one, LE, in the context of the apology to the forgotten Australians.
Like you, I struggle to understand the case.
Latest update – Freddo Frog meltdown: police chief wants charge with drawn
this morning, Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan told ABC Radio he now wanted the charges withdrawn and referred to the state’s juvenile justice team.
“They will not actually be dropped, but sent to the state’s Juvenile Justice Team,” Mr O’Callaghan said.
Also, as John hinted at, there does seem to be more to this story. The Northam police are quoted as saying the boy had come to their attention before but had not been charged, whilst the commisioner is also quoted as saying that “”It is quite a complicated case, and there are a lot of issues behind it which we are not allowed to discuss publicly.”
(though he would say that in any matter I guess?)
I’d guess that the boy charged with receiving stolen goods is the dominant one in the friendship and is goading his friend into doing the stealing. I’d also guess that he’s not responded to lesser intervention attempts and the police are resorting to charging him with whatever they can in order to get through to the kid that his actions are unacceptable.
I’m wondering if by formally charging the boy that other mechanism become available for dealing with him.
…and a gentle warning is far more appropriate for a child who has no prior offences…
How does one gain prior offenses if people are always let off with a gentle warning because they have no prior offenses?
Yes, I take your points, Heath and Desipis – there could be more to the story, and I might change my view on the matter if the information to hand changed.
Of course you can’t just keep warning a kid who consistently does bad stuff. There has to be a point where you react more harshly. But it’s a balance. You don’t want to actually make the kid worse by throwing them into the criminal justice system where they just hone their criminal skills. On the other hand, I heard of some kid who was in his early teens who had a rap sheet of some 50 offences including some very serious ones – obviously you’ve got to respond seriously to that, and not just slap him on the wrist. With a kid who’s already that stuffed up, I really wonder how much can be done, though. Sigh.
One was about a black guy in WA being transported in a private security van w/o air conditioning. The heat killed him.
You think it was a case of racism or that the private security guys were completely brain dead?
Another was about the deaths of TSI’s on unseaworthy patrol boats whose pleas for help were ignored until it was too late.
I saw that. This wasn’t a case of widespread racism of the whites in general although the program obviously did its best to portray it like that.
It seemed to me that the guy in charge of that operation obviously was, in addition to being a compete prick. However it didn’t really show there was widespread racism, Mel.
JC says:
“You think it was a case of racism or that the private security guys were completely brain dead?”
One of the guards had a history of racist abuse of prisoners and various persons transported by the same company, including asylum seekers, had complained of abuse and poor treatment including being denied water, food and toilet breaks. The WA state government had also previously acknowledged the vans were below acceptable standards.
I doubt Mr Rupert Murdoch would be transported in such a manner even if he was in receipt of two stolen chocolate frogs.
As to the TSIs on the unseaworthy patrol boat, their emergency distress calls were received by the appropriate authorities but not acted on for several hours. Compare this to what happens when a rich yacht owner makes an emergency distress call during a yacht race.
Or when that idiot teenager falls asleep at the helm and crashes into another freighter.
What worries me is that news like this only makes it to the paper when it is a few standard deviations toward f*ing unacceptable. Police racism is endemic, and not just in woop woop. Just ask the coloured kids living in Redfern or Flemington.
I doubt Mr Rupert Murdoch would be transported in such a manner even if he was in receipt of two stolen chocolate frogs.
Really? So you’ve never seen the perp walk? It’s a great NYC institution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAnpTJCxjsw
But I very much doubt Murdoch would be stealing a chocolate frog as he has better things to do.
Here’s an example of a perp getting decent treatment and even tucked in for the drive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ5SUrBrOVA
I keep thinking of that Zimbardo experiment involving the college students who acted out a role play where some were randomly assigned as guards and others as prisoners. The “prison guards” started to torture the “prisoners”. I wonder if there’s something psychological in that kind of situation which makes the people in the position of power think the prisoners are inhuman, and need not be treated like humans.
Then when you add race and culture to that, it just exacerbates the divide between “guards” and “prisoners”. It’s much easier to remind yourself that the prisoner is a human being if the prisoner is someone like you, with whom you can more easily identify. By contrast, If the person does not speak English well, or looks different to you, or behaves differently to you, I suspect it is easier to treat them without compassion. And if you are managing a rough place where you’re not respected and people don’t respect the law, it’s a vicious cycle, and you tend to despise the people you are policing.
I’m not excusing this behaviour, I’m just trying to think through why these things happen, and to think what the best way of dealing with it is. I think in Zimbardo’s experiment, it was shown that the way in which leadership allows the guards to behave is really important. It is also important to deal with the moments of intense boredom that arise (the worse abuse always happened in the middle of the night).
As afar as I recall the reason the distress call wasn’t answered immediately was because of bureaucratic ineptitude and one senior public official who was a piece of shit.
Your somehow suggesting “poor”/black boat owners don’t get the same treatment as rich boat owners. That’s patently not the case.
One other thing.. most prisoner transportation very much depends on the level of assessed or actual propensity to violence. You wouldn’t see Murdoch in such a situation as I would guess his potential to be violent is far less.
One thing about about the different responses to the Torres Strait Islanders and the silly teenage yacht girl might also be the remoteness issue. Out of sight, out of mind, to an extent. It’s much more difficult to get adequate services and personnel out to remote areas. Particularly if the communities are falling apart generally in a law and order sense, as I understand some of these communities are.
Take the example of the white nurse who was living in a remote community and was raped by a gang of local men. It took ages for anyone to respond to her. The local police were incompetent and ignored her screams while she was being raped, her (white) employers were incompetent and took days to fly her out, and no one really took her plight seriously.
So I’d say racism plays a part in some of this, but there’s other issues too. I suspect authorities in these places may secretly think, What can we even do for these people, why do we bother? It’s hopeless, why care about them? However, that just exacerbates the problem rather than fixing it.
“Out of sight, out of mind … ”
I would like to see stats comparing emergency response times for a wealthy white adventurer in international waters compared with a TSI in Oz waters.
Also, the TSI people in the case I mention were Commonwealth employees who were on duty plus some passengers. They were not a bunch of drunks out on a frolic.
I would like to see stats comparing emergency response times for a wealthy white adventurer in international waters compared with a TSI in Oz waters.
How would that suggest anything at all though- especially racism, mel.
Different equipment use, different personnel etc. could even suggest that the response time in the TSI is faster but you could still have “racism”.
Also, the TSI people in the case I mention were Commonwealth employees who were on duty plus some passengers. They were not a bunch of drunks out on a frolic.
Mel, ABC story was a hysterical beat up about generalized racism when it was really a story about pathological prick, a criminally negligent boat builder, an inept government spec for boat building and quality control.
They sorely attempted to show generalized racism but there was none. It was a great example that reliance on government can shorten one’s life.
Yes, I know they were Commonwealth employees on a patrol boat. And I certainly don’t condone the terrible response.
I’m saying that it’s more complex than just racism, although I’d say it plays a part. I do wonder if the response would have been as pathetic for a bunch of white fishermen.
But it’s also about Australia’s image – failing to help an international yachtsman might harm our overseas image! (Never mind the poor innocent Torres Strait Islanders).
“I’m saying that it’s more complex than just racism …”
I agree. Social class for example adds another layer of complexity.
Mel:
No kidding.. do you recall the 4 Corners story. There was a page of things that went wrong.
1. The government orders a badly specc’ed boat.
2. The boat builder cut corners and there was no quality control. The boat is dangerous.
3. The government (local) was totally inexperienced to work in those waters but was sent out any way.
4. The senior public official doesn’t give a shit about anything or anyone and goes out for the evening despite knowing there was a storm coming on.
It was a cascading set of bad events that finally led to the drowning of those innocent people.
I really don’t know how you could read racism into it except perhaps with the arsehole that was heading the office there and even then I don’t think his racist views would have motivated him to see dead people on his watch, as it wouldn’t look good for his resume.
I think you’re reading far too much into it.