Media Release

16 March 2018: KAP Federal Member for Kennedy Hon Bob Katter MP has slammed the juvenile prison system for its apparent state of disarray, saying that arresting repeat offenders is becoming a costly joke and that relocation sentencing is a more proactive and productive penalty for youth offenders.

The Kennedy electorate borders Townsville and Cairns which have both reported a significant increase in youth crime in the past 12 months. Townsville has the highest youth crime rate in Australia with reportedly 104 cars stolen every month.

Mr Katter said the current jurisdiction system was useless and has created a ‘revolving door’ situation where the same repeat offenders are appearing in Court each week.

“In Townsville, with the highest crime rate in Australia, over a 15 year period, every single person in Townsville will have had their car stolen and72% of these cars will never go back on the road.

“These juvenile offenders are costing us $570,000 per detainee. For each offender, the detention costs the tax payers $570,000, and the Magistrates, all they achieve is that they keep sending in amateur criminals and getting back professional ones who are totally alienated and sees themselves as an enemy of society.

“I have been racking my brains on the solution. Mike Abrahams was a candidate for KAP at the last election he’s sick and tired of people on the other side of the table bawling their eyes out.

“In the old days, before the white fellas came, the black fellas had ‘Buj-e-ka’. And it was a common word, Percy Neal told me, used by the tribes, a common word in Eastern Australia, common word in central Australia and a common word in Western Australia and it means ‘banishment’.

“If you played up in the old days, they didn’t have prisons so you’d be sent out into the bush to live by yourself until you behaved like a civilised human being, and then and only then you’d be allowed back in the camp.“So what we’re saying is to bring back ‘Buj-e-ka’. Goodbye, ta-da”.

Mr Katter said that in many situations the punishment did not fit the crime for young kids that were guilty by association. 

‘There are little kids being thrown in a steel cage like an animal when he really hasn’t done anything wrong his older brother told him to get in the car he’s stolen or he gets a bashing. In the past, those kids would have been given a good kick up the backside and a clip around the ears by the local cop and that would have been the end of it, but now they are costing us $570,000 a year.

“Relocation Sentencing offers people of Cairns, Mt Isa, Ingham, Mareeba and Townsville that these offenders will not be in in these towns any longer. They will be 500km away and they won’t be costing you $570k a year. They will be taught to build their own houses and will come back skilled and better behaved.
“No more of this revolving sentencing. It’s a joke and its costing us a fortune. With relocation, it’s ta-da, goodbye, you’re not in Cairns any more, you’re not in Mareeba anymore”.

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