Page 2486 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
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between drug use and the criminal justice system. I have also seen an answer to a question on notice from Mrs Jones which states that 110 prisoners at the AMC are receiving some form of treatment for addiction issues. With the capacity of the AMC just north of 300 we are approaching a third of inmates and detainees who are receiving treatment for addiction issues.
I understand that there are many more inmates and detainees who have problems with inappropriate use of alcohol and tobacco, but that is not the subject of the motion today, although the minister did try to make it that.
It was reported on 18 April in the Canberra Times that one of the more recent young people admitted to Bimberi was a 17-year-old accused of murder. The article stated that this young person was so drug affected and violent that it took three police officers to restrain that person. The report also states that many young people admitted to Bimberi are affected by the drug ice and that the centre has to manage their withdrawal.
The ABC reported in December that many young people in Canberra are using ice and other dangerous drugs and are being targeted by drug dealers. Matthew James of the Police Citizens Youth Club said that drug dealers targeted school aged children living on the streets unlinked with support services and not going to school. Many of those students are too young to work. Mr James said of these kids that to feed their addiction they will sleep with these older males to get free ice. He said they end up having to steal cars and commit break and enters, aggravated robberies and pretty much anything they can for drugs.
The commission-initiated review of allegations regarding Bimberi Youth Justice Centre notes gaps in rehabilitation and other drug and alcohol services for young people. Families that have young people with complex substance use disorders are telling us they are having trouble dealing with these issues. It is a pitiable state for a family to be in the situation where they have to turn the care and protection system and say, “Please take our child from us because they represent such a danger to the rest of the family”.
Unfortunately, voluntary treatment orders do not always work. We have to be absolutely sanguine about this: sometimes treatments do not work. But we should be doing everything we can to increase the type and variety of services available so we might find something that does work. Families are finding it difficult to cope with the impact of a young person with complex substance use disorders. It places a great strain on families, especially when there are other children.
We need to look to measures being considered in other jurisdictions to see whether they might work and whether we can add them to the panoply of services we provide, especially considering that it has already been pointed out to us that we have significant gaps in the services we provide.
Mrs Kikkert reflected on the work of Magistrate Bowles in Victoria through her Churchill Fellowship, and there are many relevant models both in Australia and elsewhere that we can reflect on, We can to some extent use the work already done by
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