MIKE KARADJIS, a youth worker in Sydney's western suburbs, is the Democratic Socialist candidate in the seat of Fairfield in the NSW election. He spoke to Green Left Weekly's DAVE WRIGHT about the major parties' law and order push and its consequences for young people.
What will be the likely effects of the latest NSW juvenile justice legislation on young people?
The legislation gives police extra powers to remove young people from the streets; it will allow police to further harass young people, who a lot of the time are doing nothing more than hanging around the streets because that's their social life. Most of these kids are being victimised for crimes in which only a small minority are involved.
What are relations between young people and the police like?
Relations have never been terribly good in this area (like a lot of others). The NSW Youth Justice Coalition gathered quite a large body of evidence, showing that people from non-Anglo backgrounds are far more likely to be harassed, strip-searched, arrested or injured by police than Anglo Australians. Koori, Asian and Arabic youth are the most vulnerable. This highlights the very deep racism within the police force, which has never been properly investigated.
The press has portrayed the Fairfield and Cabramatta areas as having a youth, in particular Asian, gang problem. Is this the case?
Most young people who are said to be in "gangs" are not. There are groups of young people who hang around together, as young people tend to do. But in most cases they're not doing anything wrong.
It's important to look at the causes of anti-social behaviour, the violence and attitudes amongst the small minority. This area has the highest unemployment in the state; we have a generation of young people on the fringes of society, who will probably stay there forever if the statistics on long-term unemployed are correct. There is a hopelessly failed education system. There are very few youth centres, or very little to do that doesn't cost money.
In this situation, there can be a problem with crime. But we need to attack the root causes, not stupidly blame all young people hanging around the streets, or target and harass them for the problems caused by the government's policies.
What is the relationship between the education system and youth crime?
The schools out here include some of the biggest in the state. In some cases, class sizes are over the legal limit of 30 students. The more students in a class, the less useful it will be for each young person; they drop out of school, end up without skills and therefore without jobs. Some of these people will have no choice but to live on the streets.
There are also a lot of young people who are staying in school, not because they want to, but because there's no work and they can't get apprenticeships. Yet the resources aren't being put into the system to give them the kind of useful education they have a right to. Both teachers and students suffer.
What are the solutions?
There's a need for thousands of socially useful jobs — not slave labour training wages — in areas such as public transport (which would help alleviate some of the safety problems) and cleaning up the environment. We need money spent on education so that class sizes can be halved.
Involving the community, including people on the fringes, in local initiatives may prevent people from turning to crime.
A very good example of this was the RISE project in East Fairfield. In the middle of a housing estate there was a little park which many residents a couple of years ago identified as a black spot because groups of young men always hung around there; parents and children wouldn't use the area. The community centre sponsored recreational activities around the area which brought parents and children back to the park.
It was so successful that the young men, who complained that they were being pushed out, approached RISE for sponsorship of their touch football team. RISE paid for the registration and T-shirts.
If there were more such projects we'd have a much better success in fighting violence or anti-social activities.
How can young people fight back?
The attacks on young people aren't aimed simply at the so-called street gangs. They are part of an overall campaign by both Labor and Liberals to lower young people's living standards. Young people need to organise and campaign for the right to a decent job, income and education. They should also demand full legal rights at 16 and campaign against the abolition of the youth dole.