Who ever though locking children up in prison was a good...

Who ever though locking children up in prison was a good idea?

Prison is by its nature dehumanising. take away the humanity that people need and we become more unhuman.... that is we revert to animal instinct rather than using our human intelligence. The younger (in the earliest developmental stages) a person is when entering prison, or if preferred, the "Justice System", the less developed is their humanity, the more care they need to develop the higher functions of their brains.

It doesn't matter if the child is Aboriginal or any other culture, what matters is that kids go to prison these days far easier and at younger ages than when I was a kid.

Youth crime is an important issue but the means of managing the consequence of crime is even more important.

So another child has been found dead in the notorious Unit 18 in WA and still the dimwitted politicians blame the victim instead of recognising its the system failing these kids. For any person to consider suicide as a viable means of dealing with life's problems they must be pushed to desperate measures.

If the means of "correcting" such behaviour as to break laws and require such "protection" for the community is to make them so threatened they see suicide as the most viable option, the correction is too threatening.

And this does nothing to protect the community or to instil an understanding that laws are the limits set to behaviour by the community (politicians), As any person subject to such threatening "management" - and they justify the prison management by saying they are trying to control the behaviour - when released will inevitably see the laws and community safety as the cause of their imprisonment and incite deeper anger and hatred of the community and its laws.

Prison only delays the development of understanding community safety and the need for laws. Therefore the safety of the community is actually THREATENED by imprisonment.

We adopted our means of changing peoples' behaviours from the colonial Brits. Isn't it time we realised such primitive treatment, particularly of children (from 10 YEARS OLD), only worsens criminal behaviour?

Clearly we need to rethink how we manage "criminals"..... and the start is to stop locking up children!