Tuesday, August 25, 2009

In keeping with tradition, any listener to the now defunct Mothership Connection program on 2SER would have noticed that the show always was bigger than just music, mixes, random banter.

A heads up to the ABC investigative journalism television program Four Corners is quite a different post to what appears here regularly, still very, very relevant. NSW has some of the highest rates of juvenile detention in the country. As Matthew Carney's report reveals, the "lock 'em all up and throw away the key" solution is not working. It’s hard not to be mad at some of these people in power in NSW when programs that have proven success rates in making a difference to the lives of teenagers who are at risk of re-offending are still on the drawing board after 10 year trial periods. Programs whose future is still up in the air. The fact that there are so many youth in detention centres in this state, for acts as minor as possession is ridiculous. As you’ll see (while watching this report), some of these centres have a major overcrowding problem, those inside spend up to 18 hours in a cell with no toilet access. And people wonder why there is a lot of anger brewing inside a lot of these youth.

On another note: There was an eye-opening article on the tragic police shooting of Victorian teenager Tyler Cassidy in The Weekend Australian Magazine (8-9/8).
Try and find it.

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