I don’t watch or read the news a whole lot because it always leaves me feeling angry or anxious or helpless. It’s not that I don’t want to be informed, it’s just I felt like I was carrying the burden of a world’s problems, without doing anything effective to help.
Today I read our local paper and those same feelings of anxiety crept over me. Stories of thefts and aggravated assaults, which once seemed isolated to the big bad city, are an ever increasing reality of country towns. The sweet innocence of leaving our doors unlocked is a thing of the past, and in its place we have traumatised victims and a wider community who doesn’t know where to start.
Many of us believe the judicial system needs to come down harder on those who commit crime. Certainly if my loved ones were ever victims I would want the perpetrators dealt with to the full extent of the law, no question about it.
But I also know that people who go into prison do not just disappear. They come back out with the rest of us, often more messed up than before.
I’m not suggesting I have the answers. I’m just an average person, I grew up in a loving middle class family and I’m now attempting to raise my own. What I do have though, is a burning desire for us to start being proactive rather than reactive, because in every situation I can think of, prevention is better than cure.
I don’t know the best way to help, but I know it starts with children.
If we retraced the steps of nearly every adult who has gone on to commit crime, there would almost certainly be risk factors in their childhood. Whether it be trauma, neglect, family breakdown, mental illness or learning difficulties. Each of which can have a huge impact on the future prospects of a young person. There would have been opportunities, probably several, and we missed them.
There are children being born into generational poverty. It is a world that is a heck of a lot easier to stay in than it is to get out of. Their dreams have a plaster ceiling. We are leaving them behind.
Children are starting formal education without the skills and nurturing required for them to flourish. They begin school at a disadvantage and the gap just gets bigger and bigger. We are leaving them behind.
There are children, who through absolutely no fault of their family or themselves, have difficulty learning. School becomes a place of anxiety, shame and a daily reminder that they are not good enough. They leave as soon as they can, why wouldn’t they? We are leaving them behind.
Children are being exposed to trauma or neglect. Intervention is too little and often comes too late. Traumatised children without support grow into traumatised adults. We are leaving them behind.
It starts in infancy, with our children.
I’m not stupid or naive, I know there are no easy answers. But we have got to stop leaving these kids behind.
I don’t know what the government is doing, but I hope they have their best people thinking about this issue. I hope they will be brave enough to set the slow wheels of change in progress. To see that it’s not enough to splash money around for a short term bandaid solution, just so they might look good enough to be re-elected.
We need genuine, long term goals that are backed by best practice.
There are so many of us who want to help, who are willing to give our time or expertise, we just need some direction.
We need to catch these children before they grow into adults who think their only option is a life of drugs and crime. Who go on to have their own children who know no other way.
We can do better. We need to do better.
podgy hodgy 