WEBVTT - BONUS EPISODE: Four conversations about crime 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.160 I'm Andrew Rule is his life in crimes Now. We 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:10.720 tackled the thorny issue of youth crime recently, but since 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:15.080 then this topic has absolutely taken off. In my colleague 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:21.240 SHENNONDERI unearthed excellent new figures which show that youth crime 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:27.360 in Victoria has exploded. It's gone up one thousand percent 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.760 in a decade, and so the precise figures of these. 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.520 In the year twenty fifteen there were only one hundred 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:41.000 and nineteen youth crime offenders or offenses, and that figure 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.680 in the most recent financial year had leapt to twelve 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.640 hundred and thirty, so just over one hundred to just 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.840 over twelve hundred, an amazing leap. We could all see 0:00:52.880 --> 0:01:00.880 it coming. But the authorities and the officials, the apologistsandemic lawyers, 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.000 the senior police who were trying to massage the message 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:10.640 for politicians, they didn't really want to acknowledge it. They 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.240 wanted to say nothing to see here, this is not 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.960 a big deal. This is all about perspective and statistics 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.320 and this and that and the other thing. But the 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:26.480 brutal raw facts cannot be hidden anymore. And we know 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:31.840 that people who as recently as twenty eighteen or even later, 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:37.360 were pooh poohing the idea of youth gangs and youth 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.000 ethnic gangs and all the rest of it are now 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.480 either acknowledging they were wrong, or they have fallen silent. 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.720 They are saying nothing because the writing's on the wall. 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.880 And it struck me this week while I was away 0:01:55.080 --> 0:02:00.240 in rural Victoria looking for the property the country high 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.200 away of an old murderer. Incidentally, it struck me while 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.440 I was driving back to Melbourne from the Country that 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.160 every phone call that I received while I was driving, 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.000 the person I spoke to, and these are all different people, 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.480 and I did not instigate the subject of conversation. It 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.920 just came up. Each person I spoke to in a 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.520 couple of hours brought up youth crime. And one guy, 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:29.160 ex detective, he said to me, all these young people 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.760 that were gathered at this demonstration in South Bank, you 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.000 know many of them were young, not all, but many 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.840 of them were young, and their lack of respect for 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:42.480 authority and for the police and for the community stands out. 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:47.080 They just don't care. And that is the same attitude 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.240 that we see in youth offenders. We see it with 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.640 the Eggbergs. We see it with the people who steal cars. 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.680 They break into your house with or without weapons, then 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.200 they take your keys, then they take your car. Then 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.320 they drive far because they'd lunatics and just want to 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:07.000 have the thrills. And of course sometimes they run into 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.320 innocent people and kill them. He just made that point 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.680 about that. The next conversation I had within twenty minutes 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:19.000 was with another caller who mentioned that someone they knew, 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.440 a relative or a friend, it doesn't matter. Someone they 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.360 knew had been drugged and mugged in the inner suburbs. 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.639 They'd been slipped some sort of drug which knocked them out, 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.480 maybe in a drink, I think, and they woke up 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.520 in a back lane uninjured, thank god. But their phone 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:42.000 was gone, their sneakers were gone, and their wallet was gone, 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.320 so their credit cards and everything was gone. So that 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.320 person saw as a youth crime thing. People who steal 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:52.840 sneakers are generally not you know, senior fifty year old criminals. 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.840 It's the young brigade. And then I got another call, 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:01.520 and this was from a woman who I'd arranged to 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.600 meet and to interview about the pet Gill family, the 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.839 notorious Pett and Girls, Cath pet and Gill, of course, 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.560 is the mother of bad guys that were drug dealers 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.040 and killers and thieves and all the rest of it. 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.640 And I was to interview this woman about one of 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:23.520 those children, one who went straight interestingly, and the lady 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.480 rang up and was apologetic. He said, I can't meet 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.440 you today or tomorrow. I'm sorry. I'm at the hospital. 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.880 I said, oh, it's everything, okay. She said, I know. 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.800 It's not me. It's my son. He's been stabbed. Now 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.160 it turns out a son is an adult. He's not 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.760 a youth who's been fighting in the street. He's someone 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.240 in his thirties who's a social worker. And he's been 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:52.080 stabbed by some mad kid, by some teenager, and he's 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:57.240 in hospital and he ill survive, but it's sufficiently serious 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.880 that he's been in hospital several days, and his mother 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.480 he's visiting him because she's so concerned about him. That 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:08.240 was the third conversation I had in the space of 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:12.600 a couple of hours. Then I get to work, and 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:14.760 I get to the Herald's son office and I go 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.520 to my office and I'm sitting there working out what 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.320 to do, and along comes one of my colleagues and 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.480 she says, Oh, this is something you'd be interested in. 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:27.240 I said, what's that and she said, well, a friend 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.320 of mine is visiting Australia from England. He's doing the 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:32.840 big tour of Australia. He saved up his money, he 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.520 came out here recently and he bought a camp a 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.720 van and he's doing the trip of a lifetime around Australia. 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.240 And he thought it'd be great, and it was great 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:46.400 until he parked and camped at a spot near Newcastle 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.840 in New South Wales. Now this is not Victoria, but 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:54.000 it's you know, Australia's East Coast is probably similar in 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.960 many ways crime wise. And poor old mate from Yorkshire, 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.599 I think he's from. He's asleep in his nice camper 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:05.159 van that he bought and late at night, middle of 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.440 the night, after midnight, bang bang bang, very rough knock 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.240 and he thinks, oh, somebody's in trouble. They need help. 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.080 And he opens the door and says, oh, can I 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:18.280 help you, and three young men dragged him out at 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.960 knife point or machete point, dragged him out of the 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:26.039 car and said we're taking a van and he's just 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.480 wearing a pair of jocks. And one of them said oh, 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.880 let him put his jeans on and a jumper, but 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.680 he was still barefoot. He put on his jeans and 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:35.560 jump up, but was still barefoot. And they left him 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.480 there in the middle of the night, out somewhere, you know, 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.680 camping bush somewhere, and he had to go and find 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.440 other campus, and they of course didn't want to help 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:47.640 him because they were frightened that he was a bad guy. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.600 And the bad guys, the three took his van and 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.120 they just trashed it. They drove it fast, then they 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.120 smashed it, and then they trashed it and they just 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:02.000 buged up his van. So this is the fourth conversation 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.279 I've had in one day to people I know, none 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.880 of whom know each other. And in each case they 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.880 have brought up the subject. I haven't raised it with them. 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.240 The fourth one, Oh God, there's a pattern here. The 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.840 damn has burst. And I thought of that, Hemingway saying. 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:25.080 Hemingway once said, you go broke slowly at first, and 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.760 then you go broke all at once. And I think 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:33.120 it's the same with this youth crime explosion. For years, 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.040 it was building up for years. We could see it coming, 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.000 and the naysayers said, oh, it's not that bad, it's 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.679 not really happening much, etc. But all of a sudden 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:47.840 the levee has burst and we're surrounded by it. That 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:52.440 same day, same day, I'm thinking about this, and I'm 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.760 thinking I should write something about this, because Shennondery's story 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:01.520 with the statistics is being born out by personal experience. 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:04.640 It seems everybody I know he's got a story to tell. 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.360 And I ring an old friend of mine. He's by 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.160 way of being a cartoonist, and I rang him and 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.720 we had a chat about something, and he said, what 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.200 are you doing? And I said, I'm thinking about writing 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.600 something about youth crime, the rise in youth crime. He said, oh, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.440 tell me about it. I said what he said, Oh, 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.360 I was in Williamstown the other day and I was 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.240 in a store there and this bunch of kids, a 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.480 bunch of teenagers they weal seen and just pick up 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.480 a lot of stuff and then just brazenly steal it. 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:38.560 They just walked out of the shop without paying. And 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.200 he said. I went over to the counter and said, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.679 did you see that? Did you see those kids? And 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.280 they said, yeah, we saw it, but we've been told 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.120 don't interfere, don't get in their way. It's not worth it, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.440 you know, it's not worth the risk, etc. And so 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:56.240 basically it seems that a lot of stores have got 0:08:56.240 --> 0:09:01.680 that attitude that when certain groups steal stuff, they don't interfere, 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.280 they don't try and stop them. When they call the police, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.120 the police know exactly who it is, but they've lost 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.960 the taste for the fight too, because a lot of 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.120 these kids are relatively young, and the police are tired 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.280 of grabbing them arresting them because they know that they 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.440 go into a revolving door where they just automatically get 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:25.520 bail because of their relative youth. Some listeners might think 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.560 that that's just a bald assertion that it's a revolving door, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:35.400 and that we're exaggerating this. Well, you can think that, 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.760 but a person got in touch with me recently. Now, 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.000 this person, I've got to be careful not to identify 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.720 this person, but this person has a very good first 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:51.320 hand understanding of bail and bail justice work and all that. 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.480 This person is a sort of an official who gets 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:59.560 to see bail justices at work firsthand. This person named 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.760 a night and said, on that night, youth is brought 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:08.480 in by the police, clearly a problem child for the community, 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:13.600 steals cars, does Agberg's home invasions a real problem. You know, 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.160 a dangerous person in many ways and the potential to 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.720 hurt people because they steal cars and drive fast and 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.000 just go through red lights. They're very dangerous. And this 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.400 person said that youth was held for the night, but 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:33.360 next day he faced children's court and he faced a 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:38.880 magistrate and a bail application was made for him, and 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.920 the magistrate let him walk, put him back on the street. 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:48.959 So nighttime, held overnight, next morning face caught. Magistrate says, yeah, 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.439 go in the revolving door. You're back on the street. 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.880 Guess what happened. By the night after that, that kid 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.160 was back in business. Let's to say he had a 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.920 big night out, been grabbed after stealing cars, home invasion. 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.680 He's grabbed, next day, faces court, he's released on bail, 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:11.520 he goes out. Let's say, within twenty four hours, does 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.679 the same stuff, same offenses. He's grabbed again. And so 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.079 by the next night, and I'm making those days up. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:23.800 By the next night, he's back in custody. Now, whether 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.920 he stayed in custody or that third night, I don't know, 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:33.480 but on form he won't have because that youth. His 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:38.520 record of offenses is eight pages long of very closely 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:44.599 typed material, so he has dozens and scores of offenses already, 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:51.440 which is staggering. But as my colleague Mark Butler points out, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.600 there is a youth out there somewhere who has got 0:11:55.640 --> 0:12:00.760 at least four hundred offenses on his record, his docket 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.160 as we used to call it, as four hundred offenses. 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:08.320 He will hit five hundred pretty rapidly and keep going 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:14.320 because at his age and stage, the magistrates are virtually 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:18.679 told to not lock them up, put them back on 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.240 the street, give them bail. And this is the problem. 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.920 And the person that contacted me, the whistleblower that contacted 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.040 me about this, is someone who is involved in that 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:34.760 process up close and personal, but feels that that level 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:39.640 bail justices and magistrates sort of had their hands tied 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:46.960 by policies imposed on them from above. And that is 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:51.680 the reality of youth crime in Victoria and to a 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:56.720 large extent in Australia. Thanks for listening. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.200 Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:05.560 True Crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:10.160 features and more, go to Haroldson dot com dot au, 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:15.800 forward slash, Andrew rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:20.760 to news Podcasts sold at news dot com dot au. 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:26.400 That is all one word news podcast's sold. And if 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:30.920 you want further information about this episode, links are in 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:31.840 the description.