Aust's Drug Problem `horrific'
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday April 17, 1999
High-profile former children's court magistrate Barbara Holborow described Australia's drug problem as ``horrific" yesterday and said regions like the Illawarra needed to do more to help drug-dependent youngsters.
Detox centres rather than jails were the answer to some of the problems but education of both parents and children was crucial in the fight against drugs, Ms Holborow said.
``We lock up children and we do it because they need to be punished and rehabilitated," she said.
``What we're actually doing is making better criminals because they're not being properly supervised and they're not being rehabilitated."
Ms Holborow was addressing a group of Illawarra business and community leaders at the region's Crime Prevention, Social and Community Strategies Forum.
The day-long discussion session was organised by the Illawarra Business Chamber as a starting point for developing strategies to address the region's woes.
In her opening address to the forum, Ms Holborow - who quit the bench in 1994 in anger over the treatment of children in the justice system - warned of the need for family education and communication with troubled children.
She said care of children in the 0-5 age group and education of primary school students about the dangers of drugs were imperative in today's society.
``You have to educate kids about drugs as early as you can," she said.
``You have to teach them that their bodies are theirs and if they put bad things into it they'll get sick."
Ms Holborow, who has long championed children's causes, said drug use among juveniles should not be tolerated but that conventional methods of ``locking them up" in full-time custody were not working.
Authorities should instead be looking at weekend detention, detoxification, and crime conferencing for solutions, she said.
``I was talking about this 10 years ago but we still don't have anywhere to put these drug dependant kids," she said.
``We've got no proper detox centres with professionals and you need to start thinking about detox centres.
``I'm also a great believer that weekend detention for kids would be a great deterrent.
``If you told a kid that he had to report to a detention centre at 5pm every Friday and stay there all weekend with no TV and catching up on history lessons or something like that they'd soon learn."
© 1999 Illawarra Mercury