Queensland AG plans to put an end to fun activities in juvie

xerro wrote:

The kind of hellish overcrowding

It's not just about overcrowding, prisons have their own culture which helps add to problems with recidivism as if what was happening outside didn't complicate matters enough. Guards and inmates frequently have a mutually antagonistic relationship, some prisons you are given very little choice between either A) joining a gang or B) becoming prey to a gang. Everything you do in prison is monitored and scheduled to the point where some people, especially those who get in the system young or suffer from any number of intellectual disabilities or are on the autistic spectrum, actually start to find that kind of oversight and routine more comforting than the more unpredictable world they face outside.

Our prisons also offer educational opportunities. However, prisons in the States do not adequately prepare their inmates for life on the outside. If anything, they do the opposite.

Again, I do not know much about prisons in Australia so I can't say anything about prison there. If you don't, either, I suggest you do some serious research if this is something you really care about. But I can guarantee you that the issue is more complicated than bouncy castles and I am skeptical of anyone who tells me they're going to fix those darn-blasted kids THIS time by making prison "less fun".

xerro wrote:

Youth offenders who break and enter, shoplift, etc., though need to be shown that "this is what happens in the real world if you muck up".

The thing is, and I'm going to come from the realm of personal experience again, a lot of these kids are already more familiar with "the real world" than some people twice their age. And that's a part of the problem.

These are the kind of teenagers who were my best friends in high school, this is the kind of teenager I was. Sure I never broke into someone's home, can't speak for everyone who walked in my circles. But there was drugs, there was vandalism, there was a lot of petty theft, there was sexual assault, there was plain ole' regular assault. Again, I personally wasn't involved in all of those things, but these were all things I know for sure people I regularly came into contact with were involved in. Were we little assholes who couldn't give two shits about anything but our own ego? Of course we were. But we were teenagers, that comes with the territory.

But underneath all of that, a lot of those kids had to grow up very fast in environments where they probably felt very unwanted. I'm talking about people who actually had to take care of their drug-addicted parents like THEY were the adults in the house from the time they could walk. I'm talking about kids who, from a very young age, watched either their mother or father go in and out of jail. Kids that were bounced from relative to relative because their own parents couldn't or wouldn't take care of them and no one else in the family wanted them. Kids like that would be passed off from family member to family member and over and over again by different face after different face they would be beaten, raped, physically neglected, emotionally abused, etc etc. Kids who ran away from home at age 10 and lived on the streets or on a never-ending parade of friends couches since. Then you go to school where you open up a textbook and the entire middle falls out, clearly they don't give a shit if you read it or if you don't. No one gives a shit about me, why should I give a shit about anything? Etc.

These are the kinds of teenagers that are "bad". To write these kids off as just simply little assholes spoiled by how much fun it is in juvie who just need a good spanking to fix 'em up is naive at best, insulting at worst.

Of course then you get kids like my brother who is just a dumb shit who wants to make money quick and has been caught selling tobacco a couple times to other students on the high school campus. Or shoplifting candy. Or stealing things from school.

I kinda think he needs to spend a night or two in jail to show him that if he keeps doing dumb shit his life isn't gonna be fun anymore. >< But spending years in adult prison for being a dumb shit wouldn't help him at all.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Again, I do not know much about prisons in Australia so I can't say anything about prison there. If you don't, either, I suggest you do some serious research if this is something you really care about. But I can guarantee you that the issue is more complicated than bouncy castles and I am skeptical of anyone who tells me they're going to fix those darn-blasted kids THIS time by making prison "less fun".

Yeeeeaaaahhh, it's a bit "I once gave money to a homeless guy and then later I saw him driving around in a limo"/"I was behind someone at the checkout and they were buying lobster with foodstamps", isn't it? OMG KIDS IN JUVIE HAVE A BOUNCY CASTLE. That makes me wonder how young the kids are, honestly. Don't think they're letting sixteen year old young fellas jump on that.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Again, I do not know much about prisons in Australia so I can't say anything about prison there. If you don't, either, I suggest you do some serious research if this is something you really care about. But I can guarantee you that the issue is more complicated than bouncy castles and I am skeptical of anyone who tells me they're going to fix those darn-blasted kids THIS time by making prison "less fun".

Yeeeeaaaahhh, it's a bit "I once gave money to a homeless guy and then later I saw him driving around in a limo"/"I was behind someone at the checkout and they were buying lobster with foodstamps", isn't it? OMG KIDS IN JUVIE HAVE A BOUNCY CASTLE. That makes me wonder how young the kids are, honestly. Don't think they're letting sixteen year old young fellas jump on that.

Those damn two year old gangs going around mugging everyone!

bbb wrote:

f course then you get kids like my brother who is just a dumb shit who wants to make money quick and has been caught selling tobacco a couple times to other students on the high school campus. Or shoplifting candy. Or stealing things from school.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you ALSO come from a white trash background with royally fucked up parents?

Mr.Doobie wrote:

bbb wrote:

f course then you get kids like my brother who is just a dumb shit who wants to make money quick and has been caught selling tobacco a couple times to other students on the high school campus. Or shoplifting candy. Or stealing things from school.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you ALSO come from a white trash background with royally fucked up parents?

Well yes, but we're also not the type of family that people think of when they go "Well that family is going to raise shitty kids". Or at least not around here

Besides my brother is the youngest and loved by everyone, he gets everything he needs and a lot of things he wants so there is really no reason for him to be shoplifting. I'm kinda the black sheep being born out of wedlock and being super mouthy

bbb wrote:

Or at least not around here

Well, it's not entirely about parents being outright abusive. My friends and I used to justify our shoplifting by telling ourselves "oh no, whatsoever will the CEO of Codeine Inc do with us stealing this bottle? Why he might have to wait one whole day before he can afford to buy his kids a pony ranch because of people like us. What a fucking tragedy." You know, snotty poor teenager logic.

bbb wrote:

Besides my brother is the youngest and loved by everyone, he gets everything he needs and a lot of things he wants so there is really no reason for him to be shoplifting.

I dunno. My little sister was the golden child. But yet, I'm in college, while my sister has now decided she is not going to college because she's going to marry her boyfriend and he's going to take care of her. Did I mention this boyfriend has no job, lives with his parents, isn't going to any secondary school either, wants 6 kids, and doesn't want my sister to have any friends and if she does go out with friends he texts her pictures of him cutting himself with notes attached telling her he's going to go to his parents barn and hang himself she's made him so depressed?

Yeah, I don't really think kids who were raised right do those things. I've talked to her about it, and she tells me those things are just signs of how much he loves her. So somewhere along the line someone taught her that being a possessive, unstable, emotionally abusive asshole was the way to show someone you love them.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

I've talked to her about it, and she tells me those things are just signs of how much he loves her. So somewhere along the line someone taught her that being a possessive, unstable, emotionally abusive asshole was the way to show someone you love them.

That "someone" may be the media she's consuming. Was she ever into Twilight? Not that it's the only book/movie/TV show that holds up stalkery/manipulative behaviour and grandiose/dramatic gestures as proof of love, mind you.

Spoonman wrote:

I've talked to her about it, and she tells me those things are just signs of how much he loves her.

If you consider love to be a mental illness, then yes.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

I've talked to her about it, and she tells me those things are just signs of how much he loves her. So somewhere along the line someone taught her that being a possessive, unstable, emotionally abusive asshole was the way to show someone you love them.

That "someone" may be the media she's consuming. Was she ever into Twilight? Not that it's the only book/movie/TV show that holds up stalkery/manipulative behaviour and grandiose/dramatic gestures as proof of love, mind you.

I'm not saying parents are the only ever deciding factor, and yes, she still is a big fan of Twilight.

I think what I'm trying to say, through illustrative personal experience, is that troubling cultural tropes such as the "Twilight Effect" take a more damaging and pervasive hold on the lower class, where you often lack control and certainty over your situation when compared to, say, people who are middle class. Conspicuous consumption is another big one.

It's totally ironic, actually, now that I think about it. I come to college with all these suburban kids who spend the $500 a month allowance their parents give them on bleached out jeans and "real" flannel shirts while the people I grew up with dig through thrift stores hoping to find a pair of sparkly cowboy boots or an Abercrombie hoodie. [/aside]

I think when you're shaking your fist at those "durned juvenile delinquents" these are the kind of things you need to have on your mind and the kinds of things you need to be talking about. To me, juvie being "too fun" feels like some ridiculous red herring.

To round things out, my sister as an impressionable baby soaking in everything she saw in the world around her saw little boy me being locked in the basement for hours at a time, choked, chased around the house with a knife, and pushed down the stairs sometimes for things as simple as "acting like a faggot". I had far too many friends with similar experiences from the same area for me to feel like this makes me unique, and I can't help but recognize it as a troubling pattern of parental behavior in poverty-stricken areas. You don't just see parents spanking their kids in areas like there or the poor section of Philadelphia. You see parents reacting to bad or just simply annoying behavior from their kids by grabbing their kids arm in a rage and going fucking crazy on their asses with a belt or a paddle. These are parents who have no hesitation to slap their toddler across the face in a grocery store where everyone can see them.

So even if you're not the target of this kind of treatment, you're raised in an environment where abusive behavior = love.

And I certainly don't think it's a coincidence that most of the people I knew in high school are married and already have two kids (but no job for either party and no education beyond high school) when I still haven't even gotten through 4 years at college.