By Cam Lucadou-Wells
State election candidate Laura Chipp is no “soft leftie”.
But the head of Victoria Police’s childrens court prosecution unit says the ramped-up ‘tough on crime’ approach isn’t working – and won’t work.
“I know these kids, I know how to stop youth offending through evidence-based programs.”
Evidence around the world shows that mandatory sentencing fails to cut crime, Ms Chipp argues.
“Mandatory sentencing does the complete opposite and increases offending.”
The lock-em-up approach takes little notice of underlying issues such as an offender’s drug and alcohol issues, intellectual disability or acquired brain injury and homelessness, she says.
“As soon as they’re let out of jail, they’ve got no supports, no programs, nothing.”
It’s a recipe for re-offending, she argues.
Her father Don Chipp famously founded the Australian Democrats – a party that had wielded balance-of-power in the Federal Senate.
Ms Chipp has joined Upper House MP Fiona Patten’s Reason Party – once known as the Sex Party.
Like her father, Ms Chipp holds strong convictions.
There’s a lack of investment in mens behaviour change programs for family violence perpetrators, she says.
The vast majority of men who do the program don’t re-offend, Ms Chipp says.
Yet there are waiting lists of up to nine months.
And up to three years for men in custody, she says.
The Reason Party are calling for men being ordered onto behaviour change programs at an early stage, like the first time an intervention order is served.
It is being trialled at Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court.
“I want to stop him hitting her again – and again and again and again,” Ms Chipp said.
“Unfortunately the main parties are looking to punish him for that one incident but they’re not actually looking at solving the problem.”
Ms Chipp says the South East needs a 32-bed compulsory rehab facility for young people with substance and mental health issues.
She wants more young people doing ROPES courses with police officers. It’s a diversion program that stops 88 per cent of participants’ re-offending, she says.
“Our law-and-order policies are based on evidence.
“It doesn’t sound as sexy as tough on crime but we’re smart on crime.”
She says young people in African communities would suffer “catastrophic impacts” due to “racial profiling”.
Less than 1 per cent of crimes were committed by South Sudanese community members “but you open up the newspapers you wouldn’t think that”.
“The media and the race to the bottom is driving that.
“I’ve sat in the Magistrates’ Court and seen … if the kid in the dock has dark skin, the journalist writes. If they have white skin, they don’t.”
She is calling for a Clyde North cultural community centre – a space for young people of all cultures to hang out and feel comfortable in.
“South Sudanese elders say if our teenagers had a space … crime will drop. But there’s no where for them to go so they hang out in parks.
“A lot of them are bored, don’t have any activities to do, can’t even afford to even pay for membership to be in the local basketball team.
“People might say that’s soft on crime. But that’s actually the answer.”
Ms Chipp believes she would have had a strong chance of winning a seat but for “back room” preference deals brokered by Derryn Hinch Party chief-of-staff Glenn Dreury.
The Reason Party were punished by the deals for “blowing the whistle” on Dreury’s “conflict of interest”.
She urges electors to take the preferences in their own hands, and vote ‘below-the-line’.
