What strategies are being employed by her department to combat youth crime and anti-social behaviour in the Cairns area generally and the Barron River Electorate particularly, and what resources are being made available for this purpose?

ANSWER

• Strategies employed by the Department of Communities to combat youth crime and anti-social behaviour in Cairns and the Barron River Electorate in particular, include the delivery and funding of a number of services aimed at preventing offending.
• The department, through its Youth Justice Service Centres in Cairns, Innisfail and Atherton works with young people who commit offences once they have been sentenced. This work focuses on supervising the offenders' youth justice orders under the Juvenile Justice Act and on addressing their offending behaviour to minimise the rate of re-offending.
• Youth Justice Conferencing is another activity of the Department of Communities aimed at reducing youth offending. It provides an opportunity for the Police and the Courts to divert young people, who have committed offences, from the youth justice system before they get entrenched in the system. As part of a Youth Justice Conference the young person has to face his or her actions by meeting the police and the victims of their crime and come to an agreement about how to make restitution for the offences they committed. At the completion of a Conference, all participants are required to complete an evaluation form. The Participation Satisfaction Index data from July 2007 to 30 May 2008 in Far North Queensland, indicates that 99% of all conference participants over that period were satisfied with the process.
• The crime prevention initiatives funded by the Department of Communities include the following:
  • A Youth and Community Combined Action program provided by Choice Australia. This service is funded $103,000 per annum and offers a range of crime prevention activities for young people from the Cairns LGA, including Gordonvale. Brokerage funds are also available to respond to the needs of young people from across the broader Cairns area, including the Cairns northern beaches area.
  • A Youth Outreach program provided by Youth Empowerment Towards Independence (YETI) is funded $216,000 per annum to provide services to chronically homeless young people, in order to divert them from risk-taking and/or offending behaviour. The service provides outreach support to the Cairns LGA, including Cairns northern beaches area. Referrals are also accepted from Cape York and the Tablelands areas.
  • The AFL Kickstart program is funded $113,960 under the Regional Crime Prevention program. This program aims to engage young people in the Cape York and Torres Strait Islander communities in constructive recreational activities and pro-social activities, that will help address some of the causes of offending.
  • The department also funds the Northern Outlook program which provides early intervention youth programming, training and support services for youth agencies assisting them to deliver quality intervention programs for their clients.
• The Abused Child Trust has recently been funded over $1 M per annum to provide a Young Offender Community Response Service and a Bail Support Service to young people and their families in Cairns and Far North Queensland, from 2008-09 onwards.
• The Abused Child Trust is working closely with the Department of Communities to ensure that it provides the best possible services to young people at risk of offending and those already involved in the youth justice system.