HEROIN FUELS YOUTH CRIME, MPS WARNED

Every second juvenile offender in NSW has been using heroin, and drug
use is contributing to an increase in violent crime, a parliamentary
inquiry was told yesterday.

The head of the Department of Juvenile Justice, Mr Ken Buttrum, told
MPs that drugs were also being brought into detention centres by
visitors, and possibly staff.

Heroin use among inmates had tripled in the past four
years.

Thirty-four per cent of offenders in detention centres had used
cocaine, up from 15 per cent four years ago; almost 60 per cent had
tried speed or amphetamines, and about 92 per cent cannabis.

Many of the drugs had a tendency to increase the aggressiveness and
feeling of invincibility in users, leading to more violent crimes, he
said.

While fewer people were appearing before children's courts, serious
assaults and robberies had increased by almost 40 per cent in the past
four years, and drug use was partly responsible.

"I think this is a major social problem influencing youth crime in
this State, and until such time until we deal effectively with the
drug problem I think we are going to have these continued problems in
our society," Mr Buttrum said.

Seventy per cent of young offenders were experiencing legal or
criminal problems because of their drug use.

The department was considering using sniffer dogs to screen staff, and
to ask them to leave their belongings in lockers. Visitors were
already being searched and had to use lockers.

But the department was not allowed to search visitors' body cavities
for drugs, and had to find the fine line between introducing a
draconian system and deterring visitors, he said.

The Opposition spokeswoman for juvenile justice, Ms Patricia Forsythe,
said Mr Buttrum was not strong enough on getting drugs out of the system.

"He is being dragged every step of the way instead of seeing it as the
serious problem it really is," she said.

Mr Buttrum told the inquiry into the link between crime and social
support that the number of "finalised appearances" at children's
courts for "serious person-related offences" - such as robberies and
aggravated robberies, assault and sexual assault, and murder - had
risen from 649 to 896 since 1995-96. Court appearances for aggravated
sexual assaults had risen from 90 to 121, and those for aggravated
robberies rose from 367 to 510.

Mr Buttrum said young people were getting caught up in a cycle of
violence that started at home.

Only 28 per cent of juvenile offenders surveyed said there was no
violence in their home, and half of all inmates said they had
experienced physical violence in their families.

Nearly 90 per cent of juvenile offenders in a Campbelltown detention
centre had been notified as abused to other authorities, with
two-thirds of inmates notified as abused more than once.

While most young offenders did not commit another crime, those most
likely to re-offend had been sent to an institution after their first
court appearance, and did not have strong social support networks.

"It is my conclusion there is nothing more important in the case of
those young people who are likely to re-offend than to try to link
them into other social support systems to ensure that they don't end
up at the rear end of the system, in custody."

Mr Buttrum's remarks echo recent comments from the director general of
DOCs, Ms Carmel Niland.

She told the Sydney Institute last month DOCS needed public help in
supporting families because of growing drug use among families.