HELPING HAND AFTER DOING TIME URGED

The State Government was more interested in opening new prison beds than in
assisting young offenders just released from custody, one of Victoria's top
drug experts said yesterday.

The executive director of the Youth Substance Abuse Service, David Murray,
said that when youths were released from custody they were often alone or
had insufficient support. They frequently drifted back to a drug subculture
or to people they had met inside.

"Until very recently there's been no focus or increase in any type of
resources to post-release support to young people getting out of these
places," he said.

Mr Murray said the State Government was "philosophically interested" in the
issue, but was not prepared to commit "huge buckets of money" to it, unlike
its decision to build new prison beds.

But Community Services Minister Christine Campbell said last night that
high death rates of young people after release from juvenile justice
centres was a challenge for the whole community.

The young men and women involved were at the extreme end of risk for
premature death, with drug problems, unemployment, risky behavior, and few
ties to help them.

"They have lost their freedom, they might have lost their family, they
might have lost their job," she said. "Without self-esteem there is very
little reason to keep living."

Mentoring, employment and education and training programs needed to work
effectively for their self-esteem to be restored. Ms Campbell defended the
government's funding of post-release services, saying an extra $4 million a
year had been provided to an area that had been woefully neglected by the
Kennett government.

The Agereported yesterday that a study by the Adolescent Forensic Health
Service had found that young men released from juvenile justice centres had
death rates 10 times that of the general community, and that young female
offenders were dying 40 times more often than women in the community.

One-third of the deaths occurred soon after release, and were the result
mainly of drug use and suicides.

Opposition community services spokeswoman Lorraine Elliott said drug
treatment programs in juvenile justice centres needed to be intensified and
better resourced. Planning for release of offenders and links with service
providers also needed to be improved, as did funding.