Can't see a solution to that other than shooting the thief, which should be mandatory. Most people will charge their EV outdoors just for safety reasons.
Whenarewethere said
10:08 AM Jul 19, 2023
The plugs are bigger than the cable, put lock & chain on it. Ok, they can still cut it, but it will stop the opportunist.
Make the cable look tired, lots of electrical tape repairs.
Gundog said
10:08 AM Jul 19, 2023
Easy target for copper wire theives.
It's beyond time to restrict the buying of copper etc to licenced contractors.
msg said
10:19 AM Jul 19, 2023
Gundog wrote:
Easy target for copper wire theives.
It's beyond time to restrict the buying of copper etc to licenced contractors.
More laws? We are drowning in them. and no more surveillance cameras please.
Just catch them and punish them severely. (not just a fine)
rmoor said
10:52 AM Jul 19, 2023
"Just catch them and punish them severely. (not just a fine)"
That will be the day.
We are flooded with recidivist behaviour in my country town and the perpetrators are continually let out to do as they please when they please.
There is not much you can do about it when the crims have the law on their side.
It will get significantly worse when incarceration rates become altered and the ages of juvenile criminals raised.
I read that article about the charge hoses being stolen.
It is simply a matter of taking precautions to try and prevent yourself becoming a victim.
Dubbo NSW has become so bad, when I go there I park in the safest spots I deem to be OK and limit my time in the shops, medical etc because the vehicle theft rates are so high.
Spoke to some motel owners in West Dubbo recently and they said they have to employ security guards EVERY night as it is so bad.
Problem is it is the same ones doing the crimes every night because they are back on the streets next day when caught and do not give a rats.
That is why I mentioned on here that Yeoval NSW is a fair location between states for a stay as it does not have the criminal elements in play that frequent places like Dubbo that attract the unwanted elements from all over Western NSW.
You really have to pick your targets where you stay now.
As I mentioned on a thread a few days ago a mate from Nat Parks and Wildlife told me there are locations that are simply not safe for an overnight stay for travelers as they are targeted by these criminal elements.
These copper thefts will continue, will become chronic in some areas and will go unpunished.
It is just something we have to accept and get used to as commonplace.
I have always said, it should be 3 strikes and you are out.
I don't subscribe to all this woke and incarceration rates talk, do the crime do the time, I don't give a rats what their upbringing was. Everyone in this country has an opportunity to improve their situation. In this day and age there is no excuse for recidivist behaviour with billions thrown at "programs".
Reckon there should be a couple of huge properties purchased out west. Put a couple of big sheds on the middle one miles from nowhere. Some with aircon and TV, some without, no buy-ups allowance, work in the fields all day to produce the food they eat. No work, they get the shed with no aircon, TV or GYM.
After 2 strikes, get told bring your toothbrush next time, 10+ years for car theft or domestic violence or drug trading and get the b*$tards out of our hair.
Mates out at the two local "corrections" centres call them the Revolving Doors. They same ones, in and out, play in the gym for a few days and whinge about their buy-ups all day. We are too soft in this country.
Why should honest, hardworking people have to put up with all this????
msg said
12:16 PM Jul 19, 2023
rmoor, you are right. A good idea to stay at Yeoval. Might do that.
Was thinking my only way north would have to be to go up the coast. Only there's just as much a risk of getting killed in a road accident. The other place might be Ponto Falls. Though its always a risk of getting bogged. (non 4WD vehicle) What about Terramugamine? Is it getting the attention as well?
Then its on up. Walgett, I usually stay there though maybe not these days. Maybe CP at Coonamble though it was a bit dark and creepy. Ah, I really want to get to visit my sister in Brisbane. Never had these issues before, I just jumped in the car and got on with it. Staying cocooned in my house is also not appealing. Maybe, I should just hop on a plane...maybe not. Not much confidence in Qantas these days. (LOL).
The old carefree days are gone I feel.
rmoor said
03:27 PM Jul 19, 2023
Yeoval does provide a possible safer and reasonable cost alternative.
What about Coonabarabran? Probably not the distance you would like?
I have also stayed at Bendemeer, Josh Hazlewood's birth town (4+ hour leg from Dubbo/Yeoval).
Between Armidale and Tamworth on possibly a different route to your plans tho.
There is a lovely low cost (was $5, a recent user might confirm) ground adjoining the MacDonald river near the rodeo grounds there and struck me as a safe spot.
I am sure other posters on here have used that location in the past as well?
Terramungamine might be too close to the action, it can be a bit of a forlorn place I reckon?
Ponto Falls is fair, I have two favoured spots just away from the river up top near small trees to get away from the large old widow maker river red gums.
Wannabe nomad said
04:00 PM Jul 19, 2023
Your right Ron Structured boot camp, where they learn what they probably weren't taught at home. Learn to respect others and themselves, learn the value of a hard days work, then you might just be entitled to some privileges. Privileges should be earned, they should not be a right.
Even if they get decent jail time, it teaches them nothing, they just become institutionalised. I'm sure there are a few programs out there that have worked in the past; but if something works you can guarantee it's funding will be cut.
-- Edited by Wannabe nomad on Wednesday 19th of July 2023 04:15:00 PM
rmoor said
04:47 PM Jul 19, 2023
Too right.
Also should have some form of National Service, not necessarily with firearms and uniforms, but areas of need, firefighting, flood relief teams, roadside cleaning aka Cool Hand Luke (road gang in chains would be good!!!!).
Was sitting the the pub a few years ago and two recidivist women near me were discussing their recent community service orders from the magistrates.
I won't give any clues as to their identities or origins obviously but it was not a conversation one really wanted to overhear.
One said she didn't even bother to turn up and the authorities did "nuffin".
The other one said "%$#& that, I just sat on the bus and read a book all day".
At least one of them had some degree of literacy.
Gundog said
05:05 PM Jul 19, 2023
msg wrote:
Gundog wrote:
Easy target for copper wire theives.
It's beyond time to restrict the buying of copper etc to licenced contractors.
More laws? We are drowning in them. and no more surveillance cameras please.
Just catch them and punish them severely. (not just a fine)
msg, your missing the point scrap metal dealers are basically receiving stolen property. How do you prevent that ?
you either put the onus on the seller to prove legal ownershop or the scrap metal dealer its not stolen property.
You only need to charge a few scrapies with receiving stolen property.
msg said
07:08 PM Jul 19, 2023
That's where the police get to do their jobs. Thats what they are employed and trained to do. Find the baddies.
Possum3 said
08:39 PM Jul 19, 2023
Unfortunately, there is no longer a "Scrap Metal Squad" - They were certainly some of the roughest, toughest, undercover operatives, in the Force.
Their unofficial HQ used to be the London Hotel, Redfern.
Aussie1 said
09:56 PM Jul 19, 2023
msg wrote:
That's where the police get to do their jobs. Thats what they are employed and trained to do. Find the baddies.
Which is exactly what they do. And overall, a very good job. Problem is the judiciary and weak kneed "do gooders and politicians" who DO NOT do their jobs. Better if you target the correct people NOT doing their jobs when you offer opinions.
DMaxer said
11:57 AM Jul 20, 2023
Judging the judiciary by a few misreported news items is not the correct way to assess sentencing procedures. The laws relating to sentencing go back hundreds of years and are not some novel idea dreamt up by do gooders. In relation to juveniles, the onus has always been on rehabilitation first and foremost and custodial sentences as a last resort. If you have ever heard the testimonies of some of our hardest and most violent criminals they all seem to have a common thread. They start off in a family surrounded by violence and are usually the victims of violence themselves. They then graduate to gangs to escape the violence in the household and become involved in various crimes that then eventuates in them being incarcerated. It was in those early days that incarcerations would lead to beatings, sexual assault by the people whose job it was to supervise them and then release as a hardened non caring violent thug. Go through the list of our worst criminals in the last fifty years and there is the common thread.
The sentencing procedure looks at various aspects. Revenge is not one of the aspects. First of all there is the personal deterrence, making the defendant aware of the punishment if he commits crimes. Secondly there is the general deterrence whereby the community learns what will happen if they commit similar crimes and thirdly there is the prospect of rehabilitation and whether that is applicable to the defendant or whether he is beyond redemption. There are a myriad of factors personal to the defendant that have to be considered, such as the role he or she played, their age, criminal record just to name a few. These judges apply the law, not mob revenge. That is not how it works.
I have been the victim of crime and my first thoughts were always that the person responsible should be hanged but that is not how it works in a civilised society. Put them away and make their life a personal hell will guarantee a monster when they are released.
All these calls for boot camps, buy up restrictions, inhouse punishment are just a nonsense. The laws were amended years ago where chain gangs, corporal punishment and light or hard labour were abolished. When you commit crimes and are sentenced to incarceration you lose your liberty. it is not a licence for mob brutality to take over.
The sentences handed out today are far more onerous and lengthy than what used to occur. Since the various States have adopted truth in sentencing in the early nineties you do the time. I can recall when murderers used to be released on licence from a life sentence after about six years. Compare that to today.
It is easy to blame the police, courts and lawyers but have a look who raised these little charmers. It is our generation that are the parents and grandparents that have failed, not society or the police and judges.
Cuppa said
12:55 PM Jul 20, 2023
DMaxer wrote:
Judging the judiciary by a few misreported news items is not the correct way to assess sentencing procedures. The laws relating to sentencing go back hundreds of years and are not some novel idea dreamt up by do gooders. In relation to juveniles, the onus has always been on rehabilitation first and foremost and custodial sentences as a last resort. If you have ever heard the testimonies of some of our hardest and most violent criminals they all seem to have a common thread. They start off in a family surrounded by violence and are usually the victims of violence themselves. They then graduate to gangs to escape the violence in the household and become involved in various crimes that then eventuates in them being incarcerated. It was in those early days that incarcerations would lead to beatings, sexual assault by the people whose job it was to supervise them and then release as a hardened non caring violent thug. Go through the list of our worst criminals in the last fifty years and there is the common thread.
The sentencing procedure looks at various aspects. Revenge is not one of the aspects. First of all there is the personal deterrence, making the defendant aware of the punishment if he commits crimes. Secondly there is the general deterrence whereby the community learns what will happen if they commit similar crimes and thirdly there is the prospect of rehabilitation and whether that is applicable to the defendant or whether he is beyond redemption. There are a myriad of factors personal to the defendant that have to be considered, such as the role he or she played, their age, criminal record just to name a few. These judges apply the law, not mob revenge. That is not how it works.
I have been the victim of crime and my first thoughts were always that the person responsible should be hanged but that is not how it works in a civilised society. Put them away and make their life a personal hell will guarantee a monster when they are released.
All these calls for boot camps, buy up restrictions, inhouse punishment are just a nonsense. The laws were amended years ago where chain gangs, corporal punishment and light or hard labour were abolished. When you commit crimes and are sentenced to incarceration you lose your liberty. it is not a licence for mob brutality to take over.
The sentences handed out today are far more onerous and lengthy than what used to occur. Since the various States have adopted truth in sentencing in the early nineties you do the time. I can recall when murderers used to be released on licence from a life sentence after about six years. Compare that to today.
It is easy to blame the police, courts and lawyers but have a look who raised these little charmers. It is our generation that are the parents and grandparents that have failed, not society or the police and judges.
Very well put I think Dmaxer.
Those who will most likely consider you wrong will be those who perceive the concrete, black & white certainty that their world view affords them, notably folk whose views are rife with 'otherising' & blame. Quite probably those who 100% deny they are any part of the problem & display little insight in so doing.
Whether or not they say so here I expect that there will be those who in order to maintain the apparent 'certainty' that accepting the complexity of the the situations cannot provide, will dismiss your views as those of an apologist for criminal behaviours, or even more simplistically reduce it to the silly labelling. No need then to consider the matter further. No need then to consider how a retributive response will make things worse, because when it happens it will be a further simple matter of blaming again. The problem with that view is that the calls for responsibility to be taken rarely come from those willing to exhibit public responsibility themselves.
msg said
01:04 PM Jul 20, 2023
Aussie1 wrote:
msg wrote:
That's where the police get to do their jobs. Thats what they are employed and trained to do. Find the baddies.
Which is exactly what they do. And overall, a very good job. Problem is the judiciary and weak kneed "do gooders and politicians" who DO NOT do their jobs. Better if you target the correct people NOT doing their jobs when you offer opinions.
Who said they didn't? I was mearly stating sequence of events. Anything to pick on you and your cronies will with a vengence as usual.
rmoor said
01:17 PM Jul 20, 2023
I think if one has been a multiple victim and self and friends continually see the same perpetrators committing the same crimes over and over again with an apparent licence to do so then one forms an entirely different opinion.
Surely there has to come a point where a lifetime recidivist perpetrator commits 54 crimes at some stage they should be incarcerated for longer than two weeks.
A few years ago I drove upon a scene where two young kids were killed by a repeat offender sourcing drugs. The local opinion of many is if the magistrates and the powers that be were actually doing their jobs, such sad disasters would not happen with the frequency they do.
We are allowed an opinion and in many cases these opinions have been formed based on being the victims of crime multiple times.
Too much emphasis is often placed on the perpetrators and the victims and their plights are ignored.
I deal with several police locally in a professional capacity. I feel very sorry for them and I think they do a great job. They are completely frustrated at having to round up the same clowns time and time again. They get spat on, sworn at, threatened and have no real means of effective retaliation. They witness constant domestic violence and unnecessary deaths.
Sorry guys, I have a completely opposite opinion having been borne out of being not a repeat offender, but a repeat victim and I know many more.
That opinion, myself and others are entitled to.
Cuppa said
03:03 PM Jul 20, 2023
rmoor wrote:
I think if one has been a multiple victim and self and friends continually see the same perpetrators committing the same crimes over and over again with an apparent licence to do so then one forms an entirely different opinion. Surely there has to come a point where a lifetime recidivist perpetrator commits 54 crimes at some stage they should be incarcerated for longer than two weeks. A few years ago I drove upon a scene where two young kids were killed by a repeat offender sourcing drugs. The local opinion of many is if the magistrates and the powers that be were actually doing their jobs, such sad disasters would not happen with the frequency they do. We are allowed an opinion and in many cases these opinions have been formed based on being the victims of crime multiple times. Too much emphasis is often placed on the perpetrators and the victims and their plights are ignored. I deal with several police locally in a professional capacity. I feel very sorry for them and I think they do a great job. They are completely frustrated at having to round up the same clowns time and time again. They get spat on, sworn at, threatened and have no real means of effective retaliation. They witness constant domestic violence and unnecessary deaths. Sorry guys, I have a completely opposite opinion having been borne out of being not a repeat offender, but a repeat victim and I know many more. That opinion, myself and others are entitled to.
Not certain what point you are making rmoor. I find myself agreeing with some of what you say (I think) but not sure I agree with what I *think* are your conclusions.
A small anecdote from first hand experience many years ago in another country.
I was working as a Child & Adolescent psychiatric nurse in a residential Child & Adolescent Psychiatric facility. A young bloke was admitted (I'll call him Dean). As was not unusual he wasn't actually displaying any psychiatric symptoms, but had caused sufficient ruckus in the community to worry folk, in particular his school teachers for whom he displayed little respect. Dean was 14, came from a broken home & had been living in out of home care for several years, having experienced multiple rejections, both from his family & from each residential facility & foster home as he was passed from pillar to post. His surrogate 'parents' were social workers who changed on a regular basis as workers, underpaid & overworked, came & went. Dean was intelligent but unwanted & had used his intelligence to become street smart to survive during his 10+ placements over half that number of years.
I used to ride motorcycles, & took my off road trials bike into work & spent time with Dean (& one or two others) teaching them the fundamentals of this off road sport in the wood adjacent to the centre. Dean, in particular, blossomed with this, he quickly became very adept on the bike & loved the rigidity of the 'foot down rules' of trials riding & it wasn't long before he was instructing others, having been trusted by me to do so. I rarely saw the side of him that others had reported prior to his admission, even when setting limits and/or admonishing him for occasional transgression of rules & expectations. Indeed he seemed to appreciate the limits & responded well to them. He would, like any adolescent still try to test them from time to time, but accepted the responses when they were consistent. He was a lovely lad, & it was hard to contrast my experience of him with the list of convictions he had as long as your arm. He had been up in front of courts many times & each time the courts had tried to see his good side & to give him the benefit of the doubt, knowing his unhappy family & 'in care' background.
It was clear (to me) that his offending behaviours were little more than pushing the limits to raise a flag to say that he was in distress - an invitation for adults to take him in hand & provide the limits that young people need to be able to grow into responsible & self assured adults. Sadly each time the court went easy on him, & although he grinned about 'getting away with it again', he also got the message that still no-one really cared about him & more that no-one wanted him.
At 17, long after he had left the service where I worked, a court finally decided that enough was enough & placed him in youth detention. In court his surprise, & absolute horror that he was 'out of the blue' suddenly being treated harshly was palpable. It seemed so obvious to me that if clear limits had been set years earlier by the system that had failed him, he would have been a great addition to society, but now he was once again being rejected, thrown away from the society to be 'trained' further in the arts of criminality & unsocialised behaviours. If the combined systems of social services, childrens courts & residential care had been able to offer him the things he most needed - to be loved & cared for with appropriate limits being set, there would have been one less criminal in society, but because he was never offered this for more than brief periods by a system which labelled him as 'bad' as soon as he tried to test if they meant what they said he continued to be rejected & funnelled into the 'unwanted pile'. Such a waste.
Sadly the cost to society for all the Deans becomes a lifetime one which costs far more that the cost of providing them for what they need, when they need it.
So blame is not just of the courts, nor indeed, of any single institution's, it is a societal problem where often young kids in strife are just not cared for, whilst those ready to point fingers continue to look the other way whilst funding for proper services which can afford to care remain absent. All too often we are 'shocked' by terrible news stories of our supposedly caring services not caring, but looking like they do until something goes wrong & it becomes apparent that the care did not exist. Then it blows over & is no longer a priority once again. All too often it come down to woefully inadequate funding & supported by a society at large who are guided not by making the aspects of society they dislike better, but by choices they make at the ballot box based upon personal desire to maximise their own bank accounts. ie. It's not them who are the problem , it's all of us.
It's not about accepting unacceptable behaviour, it's clear that we should not do this, but we should also do a lot more to prevent it happening in the first place & a lot less finger pointing when it happens because we haven't done what was needed in a timely & caring manner.
-- Edited by Cuppa on Friday 21st of July 2023 09:38:45 AM
dogbox said
12:17 PM Jul 21, 2023
there are many like DEAN that get away with many things when they are young because they underage are allowed to, if the people who can help are disillusioned with the system(doing their job, get paid go home, some do go the extra mile, a lot don't) then they do not supply the type assistance that is required, by the time these kids are 18 they are pretty set in their ways but if they have not spent time in some form of institution they get a rude wakening when they find themselves doing hard time in an adult prison.
very hard to find anyone who has been in prison twice if the first time doesn't alter their perspective on life they usually become habitual criminals
Cuppa said
12:57 PM Jul 21, 2023
dogbox wrote:
there are many like DEAN that get away with many things when they are young because they underage are allowed to, if the people who can help are disillusioned with the system(doing their job, get paid go home, some do go the extra mile, a lot don't) then they do not supply the type assistance that is required, by the time these kids are 18 they are pretty set in their ways but if they have not spent time in some form of institution they get a rude wakening when they find themselves doing hard time in an adult prison. very hard to find anyone who has been in prison twice if the first time doesn't alter their perspective on life they usually become habitual criminals
Sadly that is so true. We (us collectively,) should be able to do better & be able to do what is needed long before incarceration becomes an option. A strong argument for caring rather than punitive responses more often than not ...... & that doesn't mean going easy on them or accepting unacceptable behaviours
Are We Lost said
02:49 PM Jul 21, 2023
Cuppa I appreciated your story of Dean. Focusing on this part .....
"a court finally decided that enough was enough & placed him in youth detention. In court his surprise, & absolute horror that he was 'out of the blue' suddenly being treated harshly was palpable."
So the way I see it, the onus was on the parents (or carers in this case) to keep him on the right path. For him and others like him, if that fails, and bad behaviour continues, whatever the reason, then the next level is the community. If that also fails, then it seems the next option is the courts.
But in Dean's case, while still a youth he saw that he could still get away with his bad behaviour because there were no real consequences. Time after time, and no doubt with increasing levels of unacceptable behaviour nobody did anything to make him realise the path it was leading to. No doubt his group of friends all had similar attitudes because their social activities would not have appealed to those who chose not to do such things. So by the time he was becoming an adult, the bad attitudes were second nature .... and a life of crime was increasingly likely.
I am a believer in incentives to influence positive actions rather than disincentives to dissuade negative ones. But often you need a mix. In the juvenile courts there was no real disincentive but also no incentive other than "we will give you another chance".
Earlier the concept of national service was broached. Having forced conscription of budding criminals may not be the best way. How about a halfway house, somewhat like cadets at school but with mandated attendance. The courts could order a stint at a live-in pre military academy, starting at say 2 weeks (depending on the crime). Privileges are granted freely thus an incentive to participate. On discharge, the youth's performance would be taken into account when (if) the next crime is committed. So, in a short time, a habitual offender learns that being troublesome in the acedemy results in missing out on privileges while there, and a longer stay in future for subsequent crimes as a civilian. Those who adapt are invited to stay longer if they wish, and later, apply for the armed forces. That gives them a path to a career and out of the rut of a life of unemployment and petty crime, probably escalating.
Cuppa said
03:10 PM Jul 21, 2023
Are We Lost wrote:
Cuppa I appreciated your story of Dean. Focusing on this part .....
"a court finally decided that enough was enough & placed him in youth detention. In court his surprise, & absolute horror that he was 'out of the blue' suddenly being treated harshly was palpable."
So the way I see it, the onus was on the parents (or carers in this case) to keep him on the right path. For him and others like him, if that fails, and bad behaviour continues, whatever the reason, then the next level is the community. If that also fails, then it seems the next option is the courts.
But in Dean's case, while still a youth he saw that he could still get away with his bad behaviour because there were no real consequences. Time after time, and no doubt with increasing levels of unacceptable behaviour nobody did anything to make him realise the path it was leading to. No doubt his group of friends all had similar attitudes because their social activities would not have appealed to those who chose not to do such things. So by the time he was becoming an adult, the bad attitudes were second nature .... and a life of crime was increasingly likely.
I am a believer in incentives to influence positive actions rather than disincentives to dissuade negative ones. But often you need a mix. In the juvenile courts there was no real disincentive but also no incentive other than "we will give you another chance".
Earlier the concept of national service was broached. Having forced conscription of budding criminals may not be the best way. How about a halfway house, somewhat like cadets at school but with mandated attendance. The courts could order a stint at a live-in pre military academy, starting at say 2 weeks (depending on the crime). Privileges are granted freely thus an incentive to participate. On discharge, the youth's performance would be taken into account when (if) the next crime is committed. So, in a short time, a habitual offender learns that being troublesome in the acedemy results in missing out on privileges while there, and a longer stay in future for subsequent crimes as a civilian. Those who adapt are invited to stay longer if they wish, and later, apply for the armed forces. That gives them a path to a career and out of the rut of a life of unemployment and petty crime, probably escalating.
AWL, agree with most of your post.
When you wrote "So the way I see it, the onus was on the parents (or carers in this case) to keep him on the right path. For him and others like him, if that fails, and bad behaviour continues, whatever the reason, then the next level is the community. If that also fails, then it seems the next option is the courts". I don't disagree at all that that is an accurate description of how things are.
However I do think that as a community we should expect & do better by providing a great deal more useful support long before the child becomes labelled & abandoned. Basically I'd suggest that we could save our community a great deal of grief & cost by providing 'real' support to parents or carers to help keep kids at risk from going down the path that you describe & that so ,any 'out of home' kids end up on. Our social services if properly funded could do a far better job & that funding could save a fortune in the longer term. And many of the 'Deans' would become useful contributors to society rather than despised & costly rejects.
That was essentially the point of my post about Dean.
Are We Lost said
03:28 PM Jul 21, 2023
Cuppa wrote:
.....as a community we should expect & do better by providing a great deal more useful support ................ we could save our community a great deal of grief & cost by providing 'real' support to parents or carers ...........Our social services if properly funded could do a far better job
I at least proposed a suggestion of what the real support could be. "Useful support:, "real support", "do a far better job" are nebulous feel good terns that a politician may quote. They don't actually mean anything.
Can you be specific on what you think?
dogbox said
03:37 PM Jul 21, 2023
we have digressed from the OP
your DEAN is like so many kids we see on the news the system is a revolving door, what is the solution the cane is not an option even if we think it would be the answer a couple of Criss crosses on the backside could open their eyes or just make them smarter an not get caught at the moment there is no real deterrent . as far a social services being properly funded if they were made to be accountable for their expenditure there might be a surplus of funds but that is with most government departments just more so with the family and community because no one can report to the public what goes on
Cuppa said
07:00 PM Jul 21, 2023
Are We Lost wrote:
Cuppa wrote:
.....as a community we should expect & do better by providing a great deal more useful support ................ we could save our community a great deal of grief & cost by providing 'real' support to parents or carers ...........Our social services if properly funded could do a far better job
I at least proposed a suggestion of what the real support could be. "Useful support:, "real support", "do a far better job" are nebulous feel good terns that a politician may quote. They don't actually mean anything.
Can you be specific on what you think?
AWL, I get a 'critical' sense from your post but I'm not really sure why. I agreed with you.
To be more specific as you request "Useful', refers to the need to provide improved & intensive support to struggling parents to prevent out of home scenarios in the first place & 'real' support' means support from social services which addresses the psychosocial needs of growing children through care & consistency, rather than just providing accommodation, & a couple of hours case worker contact time a week which is nothing like parenting & only conveys to the the child that they are a case which gets fitted in with all the other cases for a while, until such time as the case worker gets burned out, & a new case worker is allocated with an often completely unrealistic expectation that relationship building can just start all over again like nothing had happened. I have known many young people who's number of placements has exceeded 20 & moe often than not ths had little to do with the child's behaviours & everything to do wth a system out of touch with childrens' needs. I
I've worked a lot with both families & kids & the one thing they all need is to feel loved & wanted & this means long term relationships which the funding models & institutional structures simply don't allow. So by 'real support' I mean providing what kids need.This requires the system to be child focussed, & largely it is anything but. Kids are expected to fit into the needs of the system, rather than the system fitting to the kids needs.
I was fortunate to work in some very special services for a number of years which did manage the sort of things I've mentioned, but as is the way with funding, a change of government & funding cuts saw the service closed because it as viewed as 'too expensive' even though it had a track record of very high success rates, with interventions in families at the time they were needed. An example. We often found that a family might have up to 40 (yes really) different workers involved with them. Frequently confusing & extremely disempowering. We would bring all these people together & the common denominator was that it rarely wasn't just the family who felt disempowered, so to did all the workers. Part of our process was to also provide psychological & expert support to these burgeoning 'family support systems' to rationalise themselves & in so doing to empower both them & the families & we would provide the necessary psychological support support to the family to facilitates this. It was intensive & involved a very skilled multi-disciplinary team, with a great deal of individual support within the team but it did have a very high success rate, (based upon long term follow ups).
If my attempt to answer doesn't suit you & you really prefer to try to pick fault & engage in argy bargy (which is how it seemed to me) then I have probably wasted my time responding. However it may be that what I have felt about your response was more about how you said what you said rather than what it was you were asking. Thus if I took what I thought was your unnecessarily adversarial tone wrongly then I apologise & hope I have gone some way to answer your questions.
I don't see that we have anything to argue about on this topic ..... do we?
Are We Lost said
07:19 PM Jul 21, 2023
Sorry if it seemed adversarial. What I was asking for was your opinion on specific actions to take rather than "better support". You write a lot of words but say little about specifics. What I got from your responding post was for more case workers so more time can be spent with each child.
I think you are right that would help, but the chances of that happening in any meaningful degree in remote locations are pretty remote. So, conceptually I agree but not practically. There has to be something else?
However, rather than expand this discussion I note dogbox's comment on thread drift and agree it is way of course. So I will not go further in that direction.
Back to the post, and the digresssion, I think theft for copper value would not be a common act for the young offenders .... more like adults who can see a way to make a few dollars.
Article here PSA: More And More Thieves Are Stealing EV Charging Cables Now (msn.com)
The plugs are bigger than the cable, put lock & chain on it. Ok, they can still cut it, but it will stop the opportunist.
Make the cable look tired, lots of electrical tape repairs.
Easy target for copper wire theives.
It's beyond time to restrict the buying of copper etc to licenced contractors.
More laws? We are drowning in them. and no more surveillance cameras please.
Just catch them and punish them severely. (not just a fine)
That will be the day.
We are flooded with recidivist behaviour in my country town and the perpetrators are continually let out to do as they please when they please.
There is not much you can do about it when the crims have the law on their side.
It will get significantly worse when incarceration rates become altered and the ages of juvenile criminals raised.
I read that article about the charge hoses being stolen.
It is simply a matter of taking precautions to try and prevent yourself becoming a victim.
Dubbo NSW has become so bad, when I go there I park in the safest spots I deem to be OK and limit my time in the shops, medical etc because the vehicle theft rates are so high.
Spoke to some motel owners in West Dubbo recently and they said they have to employ security guards EVERY night as it is so bad.
Problem is it is the same ones doing the crimes every night because they are back on the streets next day when caught and do not give a rats.
That is why I mentioned on here that Yeoval NSW is a fair location between states for a stay as it does not have the criminal elements in play that frequent places like Dubbo that attract the unwanted elements from all over Western NSW.
You really have to pick your targets where you stay now.
As I mentioned on a thread a few days ago a mate from Nat Parks and Wildlife told me there are locations that are simply not safe for an overnight stay for travelers as they are targeted by these criminal elements.
These copper thefts will continue, will become chronic in some areas and will go unpunished.
It is just something we have to accept and get used to as commonplace.
I have always said, it should be 3 strikes and you are out.
I don't subscribe to all this woke and incarceration rates talk, do the crime do the time, I don't give a rats what their upbringing was. Everyone in this country has an opportunity to improve their situation. In this day and age there is no excuse for recidivist behaviour with billions thrown at "programs".
Reckon there should be a couple of huge properties purchased out west. Put a couple of big sheds on the middle one miles from nowhere. Some with aircon and TV, some without, no buy-ups allowance, work in the fields all day to produce the food they eat. No work, they get the shed with no aircon, TV or GYM.
After 2 strikes, get told bring your toothbrush next time, 10+ years for car theft or domestic violence or drug trading and get the b*$tards out of our hair.
Mates out at the two local "corrections" centres call them the Revolving Doors. They same ones, in and out, play in the gym for a few days and whinge about their buy-ups all day. We are too soft in this country.
Why should honest, hardworking people have to put up with all this????
Was thinking my only way north would have to be to go up the coast. Only there's just as much a risk of getting killed in a road accident. The other place might be Ponto Falls. Though its always a risk of getting bogged. (non 4WD vehicle) What about Terramugamine? Is it getting the attention as well?
Then its on up. Walgett, I usually stay there though maybe not these days. Maybe CP at Coonamble though it was a bit dark and creepy. Ah, I really want to get to visit my sister in Brisbane. Never had these issues before, I just jumped in the car and got on with it. Staying cocooned in my house is also not appealing. Maybe, I should just hop on a plane...maybe not. Not much confidence in Qantas these days. (LOL).
The old carefree days are gone I feel.
What about Coonabarabran? Probably not the distance you would like?
I have also stayed at Bendemeer, Josh Hazlewood's birth town (4+ hour leg from Dubbo/Yeoval).
Between Armidale and Tamworth on possibly a different route to your plans tho.
There is a lovely low cost (was $5, a recent user might confirm) ground adjoining the MacDonald river near the rodeo grounds there and struck me as a safe spot.
I am sure other posters on here have used that location in the past as well?
Terramungamine might be too close to the action, it can be a bit of a forlorn place I reckon?
Ponto Falls is fair, I have two favoured spots just away from the river up top near small trees to get away from the large old widow maker river red gums.
Your right Ron
Structured boot camp, where they learn what they probably weren't taught at home. Learn to respect others and themselves, learn the value of a hard days work, then you might just be entitled to some privileges. Privileges should be earned, they should not be a right.
Even if they get decent jail time, it teaches them nothing, they just become institutionalised. I'm sure there are a few programs out there that have worked in the past; but if something works you can guarantee it's funding will be cut.
-- Edited by Wannabe nomad on Wednesday 19th of July 2023 04:15:00 PM
Also should have some form of National Service, not necessarily with firearms and uniforms, but areas of need, firefighting, flood relief teams, roadside cleaning aka Cool Hand Luke (road gang in chains would be good!!!!).
Was sitting the the pub a few years ago and two recidivist women near me were discussing their recent community service orders from the magistrates.
I won't give any clues as to their identities or origins obviously but it was not a conversation one really wanted to overhear.
One said she didn't even bother to turn up and the authorities did "nuffin".
The other one said "%$#& that, I just sat on the bus and read a book all day".
At least one of them had some degree of literacy.
msg, your missing the point scrap metal dealers are basically receiving stolen property. How do you prevent that ?
you either put the onus on the seller to prove legal ownershop or the scrap metal dealer its not stolen property.
You only need to charge a few scrapies with receiving stolen property.
Their unofficial HQ used to be the London Hotel, Redfern.
Which is exactly what they do. And overall, a very good job. Problem is the judiciary and weak kneed "do gooders and politicians" who DO NOT do their jobs. Better if you target the correct people NOT doing their jobs when you offer opinions.
Judging the judiciary by a few misreported news items is not the correct way to assess sentencing procedures. The laws relating to sentencing go back hundreds of years and are not some novel idea dreamt up by do gooders. In relation to juveniles, the onus has always been on rehabilitation first and foremost and custodial sentences as a last resort. If you have ever heard the testimonies of some of our hardest and most violent criminals they all seem to have a common thread. They start off in a family surrounded by violence and are usually the victims of violence themselves. They then graduate to gangs to escape the violence in the household and become involved in various crimes that then eventuates in them being incarcerated. It was in those early days that incarcerations would lead to beatings, sexual assault by the people whose job it was to supervise them and then release as a hardened non caring violent thug. Go through the list of our worst criminals in the last fifty years and there is the common thread.
The sentencing procedure looks at various aspects. Revenge is not one of the aspects. First of all there is the personal deterrence, making the defendant aware of the punishment if he commits crimes. Secondly there is the general deterrence whereby the community learns what will happen if they commit similar crimes and thirdly there is the prospect of rehabilitation and whether that is applicable to the defendant or whether he is beyond redemption. There are a myriad of factors personal to the defendant that have to be considered, such as the role he or she played, their age, criminal record just to name a few. These judges apply the law, not mob revenge. That is not how it works.
I have been the victim of crime and my first thoughts were always that the person responsible should be hanged but that is not how it works in a civilised society. Put them away and make their life a personal hell will guarantee a monster when they are released.
All these calls for boot camps, buy up restrictions, inhouse punishment are just a nonsense. The laws were amended years ago where chain gangs, corporal punishment and light or hard labour were abolished. When you commit crimes and are sentenced to incarceration you lose your liberty. it is not a licence for mob brutality to take over.
The sentences handed out today are far more onerous and lengthy than what used to occur. Since the various States have adopted truth in sentencing in the early nineties you do the time. I can recall when murderers used to be released on licence from a life sentence after about six years. Compare that to today.
It is easy to blame the police, courts and lawyers but have a look who raised these little charmers. It is our generation that are the parents and grandparents that have failed, not society or the police and judges.
Very well put I think Dmaxer.
Those who will most likely consider you wrong will be those who perceive the concrete, black & white certainty that their world view affords them, notably folk whose views are rife with 'otherising' & blame. Quite probably those who 100% deny they are any part of the problem & display little insight in so doing.
Whether or not they say so here I expect that there will be those who in order to maintain the apparent 'certainty' that accepting the complexity of the the situations cannot provide, will dismiss your views as those of an apologist for criminal behaviours, or even more simplistically reduce it to the silly labelling. No need then to consider the matter further. No need then to consider how a retributive response will make things worse, because when it happens it will be a further simple matter of blaming again. The problem with that view is that the calls for responsibility to be taken rarely come from those willing to exhibit public responsibility themselves.
Who said they didn't? I was mearly stating sequence of events. Anything to pick on you and your cronies will with a vengence as usual.
Surely there has to come a point where a lifetime recidivist perpetrator commits 54 crimes at some stage they should be incarcerated for longer than two weeks.
A few years ago I drove upon a scene where two young kids were killed by a repeat offender sourcing drugs. The local opinion of many is if the magistrates and the powers that be were actually doing their jobs, such sad disasters would not happen with the frequency they do.
We are allowed an opinion and in many cases these opinions have been formed based on being the victims of crime multiple times.
Too much emphasis is often placed on the perpetrators and the victims and their plights are ignored.
I deal with several police locally in a professional capacity. I feel very sorry for them and I think they do a great job. They are completely frustrated at having to round up the same clowns time and time again. They get spat on, sworn at, threatened and have no real means of effective retaliation. They witness constant domestic violence and unnecessary deaths.
Sorry guys, I have a completely opposite opinion having been borne out of being not a repeat offender, but a repeat victim and I know many more.
That opinion, myself and others are entitled to.
Not certain what point you are making rmoor. I find myself agreeing with some of what you say (I think) but not sure I agree with what I *think* are your conclusions.
A small anecdote from first hand experience many years ago in another country.
I was working as a Child & Adolescent psychiatric nurse in a residential Child & Adolescent Psychiatric facility. A young bloke was admitted (I'll call him Dean). As was not unusual he wasn't actually displaying any psychiatric symptoms, but had caused sufficient ruckus in the community to worry folk, in particular his school teachers for whom he displayed little respect. Dean was 14, came from a broken home & had been living in out of home care for several years, having experienced multiple rejections, both from his family & from each residential facility & foster home as he was passed from pillar to post. His surrogate 'parents' were social workers who changed on a regular basis as workers, underpaid & overworked, came & went. Dean was intelligent but unwanted & had used his intelligence to become street smart to survive during his 10+ placements over half that number of years.
I used to ride motorcycles, & took my off road trials bike into work & spent time with Dean (& one or two others) teaching them the fundamentals of this off road sport in the wood adjacent to the centre. Dean, in particular, blossomed with this, he quickly became very adept on the bike & loved the rigidity of the 'foot down rules' of trials riding & it wasn't long before he was instructing others, having been trusted by me to do so. I rarely saw the side of him that others had reported prior to his admission, even when setting limits and/or admonishing him for occasional transgression of rules & expectations. Indeed he seemed to appreciate the limits & responded well to them. He would, like any adolescent still try to test them from time to time, but accepted the responses when they were consistent. He was a lovely lad, & it was hard to contrast my experience of him with the list of convictions he had as long as your arm. He had been up in front of courts many times & each time the courts had tried to see his good side & to give him the benefit of the doubt, knowing his unhappy family & 'in care' background.
It was clear (to me) that his offending behaviours were little more than pushing the limits to raise a flag to say that he was in distress - an invitation for adults to take him in hand & provide the limits that young people need to be able to grow into responsible & self assured adults. Sadly each time the court went easy on him, & although he grinned about 'getting away with it again', he also got the message that still no-one really cared about him & more that no-one wanted him.
At 17, long after he had left the service where I worked, a court finally decided that enough was enough & placed him in youth detention. In court his surprise, & absolute horror that he was 'out of the blue' suddenly being treated harshly was palpable. It seemed so obvious to me that if clear limits had been set years earlier by the system that had failed him, he would have been a great addition to society, but now he was once again being rejected, thrown away from the society to be 'trained' further in the arts of criminality & unsocialised behaviours. If the combined systems of social services, childrens courts & residential care had been able to offer him the things he most needed - to be loved & cared for with appropriate limits being set, there would have been one less criminal in society, but because he was never offered this for more than brief periods by a system which labelled him as 'bad' as soon as he tried to test if they meant what they said he continued to be rejected & funnelled into the 'unwanted pile'. Such a waste.
Sadly the cost to society for all the Deans becomes a lifetime one which costs far more that the cost of providing them for what they need, when they need it.
So blame is not just of the courts, nor indeed, of any single institution's, it is a societal problem where often young kids in strife are just not cared for, whilst those ready to point fingers continue to look the other way whilst funding for proper services which can afford to care remain absent. All too often we are 'shocked' by terrible news stories of our supposedly caring services not caring, but looking like they do until something goes wrong & it becomes apparent that the care did not exist. Then it blows over & is no longer a priority once again. All too often it come down to woefully inadequate funding & supported by a society at large who are guided not by making the aspects of society they dislike better, but by choices they make at the ballot box based upon personal desire to maximise their own bank accounts. ie. It's not them who are the problem , it's all of us.
It's not about accepting unacceptable behaviour, it's clear that we should not do this, but we should also do a lot more to prevent it happening in the first place & a lot less finger pointing when it happens because we haven't done what was needed in a timely & caring manner.
-- Edited by Cuppa on Friday 21st of July 2023 09:38:45 AM
very hard to find anyone who has been in prison twice if the first time doesn't alter their perspective on life they usually become habitual criminals
Sadly that is so true. We (us collectively,) should be able to do better & be able to do what is needed long before incarceration becomes an option. A strong argument for caring rather than punitive responses more often than not ...... & that doesn't mean going easy on them or accepting unacceptable behaviours
"a court finally decided that enough was enough & placed him in youth detention. In court his surprise, & absolute horror that he was 'out of the blue' suddenly being treated harshly was palpable."
So the way I see it, the onus was on the parents (or carers in this case) to keep him on the right path. For him and others like him, if that fails, and bad behaviour continues, whatever the reason, then the next level is the community. If that also fails, then it seems the next option is the courts.
But in Dean's case, while still a youth he saw that he could still get away with his bad behaviour because there were no real consequences. Time after time, and no doubt with increasing levels of unacceptable behaviour nobody did anything to make him realise the path it was leading to. No doubt his group of friends all had similar attitudes because their social activities would not have appealed to those who chose not to do such things. So by the time he was becoming an adult, the bad attitudes were second nature .... and a life of crime was increasingly likely.
I am a believer in incentives to influence positive actions rather than disincentives to dissuade negative ones. But often you need a mix. In the juvenile courts there was no real disincentive but also no incentive other than "we will give you another chance".
Earlier the concept of national service was broached. Having forced conscription of budding criminals may not be the best way. How about a halfway house, somewhat like cadets at school but with mandated attendance. The courts could order a stint at a live-in pre military academy, starting at say 2 weeks (depending on the crime). Privileges are granted freely thus an incentive to participate. On discharge, the youth's performance would be taken into account when (if) the next crime is committed. So, in a short time, a habitual offender learns that being troublesome in the acedemy results in missing out on privileges while there, and a longer stay in future for subsequent crimes as a civilian. Those who adapt are invited to stay longer if they wish, and later, apply for the armed forces. That gives them a path to a career and out of the rut of a life of unemployment and petty crime, probably escalating.
AWL, agree with most of your post.
When you wrote "So the way I see it, the onus was on the parents (or carers in this case) to keep him on the right path. For him and others like him, if that fails, and bad behaviour continues, whatever the reason, then the next level is the community. If that also fails, then it seems the next option is the courts". I don't disagree at all that that is an accurate description of how things are.
However I do think that as a community we should expect & do better by providing a great deal more useful support long before the child becomes labelled & abandoned. Basically I'd suggest that we could save our community a great deal of grief & cost by providing 'real' support to parents or carers to help keep kids at risk from going down the path that you describe & that so ,any 'out of home' kids end up on. Our social services if properly funded could do a far better job & that funding could save a fortune in the longer term. And many of the 'Deans' would become useful contributors to society rather than despised & costly rejects.
That was essentially the point of my post about Dean.
I at least proposed a suggestion of what the real support could be. "Useful support:, "real support", "do a far better job" are nebulous feel good terns that a politician may quote. They don't actually mean anything.
Can you be specific on what you think?
your DEAN is like so many kids we see on the news the system is a revolving door, what is the solution the cane is not an option even if we think it would be the answer a couple of Criss crosses on the backside could open their eyes or just make them smarter an not get caught at the moment there is no real deterrent . as far a social services being properly funded if they were made to be accountable for their expenditure there might be a surplus of funds but that is with most government departments just more so with the family and community because no one can report to the public what goes on
AWL, I get a 'critical' sense from your post but I'm not really sure why. I agreed with you.
To be more specific as you request "Useful', refers to the need to provide improved & intensive support to struggling parents to prevent out of home scenarios in the first place & 'real' support' means support from social services which addresses the psychosocial needs of growing children through care & consistency, rather than just providing accommodation, & a couple of hours case worker contact time a week which is nothing like parenting & only conveys to the the child that they are a case which gets fitted in with all the other cases for a while, until such time as the case worker gets burned out, & a new case worker is allocated with an often completely unrealistic expectation that relationship building can just start all over again like nothing had happened. I have known many young people who's number of placements has exceeded 20 & moe often than not ths had little to do with the child's behaviours & everything to do wth a system out of touch with childrens' needs. I
I've worked a lot with both families & kids & the one thing they all need is to feel loved & wanted & this means long term relationships which the funding models & institutional structures simply don't allow. So by 'real support' I mean providing what kids need.This requires the system to be child focussed, & largely it is anything but. Kids are expected to fit into the needs of the system, rather than the system fitting to the kids needs.
I was fortunate to work in some very special services for a number of years which did manage the sort of things I've mentioned, but as is the way with funding, a change of government & funding cuts saw the service closed because it as viewed as 'too expensive' even though it had a track record of very high success rates, with interventions in families at the time they were needed. An example. We often found that a family might have up to 40 (yes really) different workers involved with them. Frequently confusing & extremely disempowering. We would bring all these people together & the common denominator was that it rarely wasn't just the family who felt disempowered, so to did all the workers. Part of our process was to also provide psychological & expert support to these burgeoning 'family support systems' to rationalise themselves & in so doing to empower both them & the families & we would provide the necessary psychological support support to the family to facilitates this. It was intensive & involved a very skilled multi-disciplinary team, with a great deal of individual support within the team but it did have a very high success rate, (based upon long term follow ups).
If my attempt to answer doesn't suit you & you really prefer to try to pick fault & engage in argy bargy (which is how it seemed to me) then I have probably wasted my time responding. However it may be that what I have felt about your response was more about how you said what you said rather than what it was you were asking. Thus if I took what I thought was your unnecessarily adversarial tone wrongly then I apologise & hope I have gone some way to answer your questions.
I don't see that we have anything to argue about on this topic ..... do we?
I think you are right that would help, but the chances of that happening in any meaningful degree in remote locations are pretty remote. So, conceptually I agree but not practically. There has to be something else?
However, rather than expand this discussion I note dogbox's comment on thread drift and agree it is way of course. So I will not go further in that direction.
Back to the post, and the digresssion, I think theft for copper value would not be a common act for the young offenders .... more like adults who can see a way to make a few dollars.