Raised by neglect, punished by the system: Lincoln Tarrow-Lynch Pt. 1

What happens when the system meant to protect a child chooses to punish them instead? Lincoln Tarrow-Lynch's earliest memory is watching his father being arrested. By five, his mother was in prison. By twelve, he was committing petty crime, living on the streets, and being abused by adults, yet the system kept sending him back to the danger it knew was there. In this episode of I Catch Killers, Gary sits down with Lincoln to trace the fault lines of a childhood shaped by neglect, abuse, and a justice system that criminalised a child who simply needed care. Lincoln's story challenges everything we think we know about youth crime. This episode contains references to child sex abuse and suicide. If you’re experiencing emotional distress, contact Lifeline https://www.lifeline.org.au/ on 13 11 14 anytime for crisis support and suicide prevention services. If you’ve been impacted by domestic, family or sexual violence, contact 1800 RESPECT https://1800respect.org.au/ on 1800 737 732 anytime for confidential information, counselling and support services. Subscribe to our new Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@ICatchKillers-Podcast Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram:@icatchkillers https://www.instagram.com/icatchkillers/?hl=enTiktok:@icatchkillerspodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@icatchkillerspodcastFacebook:@icatchkillers https://www.facebook.com/icatchkillers/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Lincoln Tarrow Lynch's earliest memory was watching his dad get arrested and fight with police. When he was just five years old, police raided his home and his mum was put in prison. At 12, he was arrested for the first time. How do you think this story is going to end? Well, today, I sit down with the man himself and we find out. Lincoln Tarrow Lynch, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Thank you. Good to be here.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  Well, I'm...

• 1:16Speaker 01

  I made it.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  You made it. There's a lot of times that you wouldn't have been thinking that you're going to be sitting down talking on True Crime Podcast.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Definitely not, yeah.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  Well, I saw your talk a couple of years ago at the, I think it was the end of year Rainbow Lodge event, which is attended by judges, politicians and a whole range, cross-section of people. I remember your story from there. It was very powerful. Looking forward to sitting down and speaking to you.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Youth crime. It seems to be on the front page of the papers and lead stories on the news across the country, not just here in New South Wales.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  And when you get that type of narrative, there's the people that push back, we need tougher sentencing, we need a crackdown on youth crime, do an adult crime, do adult time.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Heard that, yeah.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Lot of ways of approaching it. What's your sense in terms of youth crime? When you hear that, do you agree with it or you think we're approaching it from the wrong?

• 2:21Speaker 01

  I would definitely disagree with it.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  But I understand why people would kind of react that way and why there is that reaction because I guess it looks scary. And when you see images in the media of, you know, the different crimes being committed and a lot of it's been video recorded. It's scary.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  You know, so, and people want to feel safe and, and I, I don't know, when you hear youth crime, I remember when I was a kid, it was always the youth.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  You know, youth were always being targeted as the people who, to be scared of and, and, you know, I heard someone talk, it was actually on Vince Talk yesterday about the stats on youth crime and that they've actually gone down. But, you know, the media would say otherwise and politicians seem to say otherwise. So, and in terms of locking them up, it just doesn't work.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I know, and that's, yeah, we're really going to dig into it with you about, yeah. Once you put someone in the system, it's very hard for them to break out of the system with that. And you've been there, so you could attest to that.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  I saw the submission you made to the parliamentary inquiry, that was into youth justice and detention. And I think it was established last year.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  And the one thing that really resonated with me that you said in your submission that you, you put in was, the system chose prosecution over protection.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  And that really, it sort of hit me in your story, because I've got a bit of an understanding of your story.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Chose prosecution over protection.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Do you want to just break that down where, where you were coming from with that?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Well, I guess it's, yeah, it's in, it's in the way it's said, it's like, um, you know, you find a young person and they're having contact with the police because they've maybe committed a crime or, maybe they're doing something they shouldn't be doing.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  And then the the reaction is to maybe arrest them, um maybe whether that means they go into prison or not is another thing, but instead of like approaching them and saying, why is this kid doing this?

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Why are they behaving the way they are? Why is a a ten or eleven year old running around so angry, you know, and breaking the law when other kids aren't doing that? And it's not because that kid's a bad person or they're a criminal at heart. It's because there's other things most likely going on at home.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  And they probably have been for a long time. And and whether that's like stuff related to poverty or whether it's related to like addiction at home, maybe, or other factors that are meaning that this child doesn't have the same opportunities as other children.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  And um yeah, and and their behaviours are a reflection of that.

• 5:06Speaker 00

  Well, I I don't think uh children set out to be bad, do they?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Of course not.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  They're not inherently bad.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Of course not, exactly.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  You you don't, you know, you don't get crawl out of the cot and go, I'm going to create havoc in this world. You're you're shaped by your environment.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  And we all need the role models and and parameters to point us in the in the right direction. So that's why prosecution over protection really made me think about the way we we look at things like in your situation that we're going to hear about.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  You needed protection.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Prosecution wasn't what the you you needed someone to put an arm around you and and look after you and steer you in the right direction and and you didn't uh didn't get that.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Let's let's talk about your childhood. Where where did you grow up?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Um so I grew up predominantly in Wollongong.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  A little bit of time in ACT, um but yeah, most of my young life um was in Wollongong.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. And uh what uh family, environment, siblings, parents?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Talk us through that.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Um so my dad was much older than my mum if like when they got together.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  In his late twenties, she was seventeen, I think.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  He'd been like, uh, you know, doing crime and stuff for some time and yeah, met mum and and she fell pregnant with me and um yeah, she left him when I was pretty young.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yep, and tried to sort of do things by herself. So I was mostly raised by her, it was it was just she and I most of the time.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  You know, she had boyfriends now and then. But yeah, she was a a single mum growing up in in the eighties when that was really frowned upon.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  And she had no support from home either. So she did what she could to survive. And and sadly, um, that for her meant, you know, that she got tied up in the in the criminal world as well.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  And, you know, selling drugs and this kind of thing. So that was the the environment I grew up in.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Um, and I've read about, yeah, your first first memory was um, your father being arrested.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  And and fighting with police. That's your your earliest child.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Childhood memory.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  So that would shape the way you think.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  And then at the time, I think you were five when your your mum got arrested and ended up getting put away for

• 7:28Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  two years.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  How, did you have siblings?

• 7:32Speaker 01

  No, it was just me, just me and her. Yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  Okay. How, like, I'm trying to imagine that as a a five year old child. I look back at my children, how innocent they are at that at that age.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  How did that make you feel?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  It's it's hard for me to know how I felt at the time. I can think back to some of my behaviours at the time and see the way I was acting out. And, yeah, it was just, it was very confusing, you know, and obviously the arrest with mum, I can remember a lot more vividly than the one with dad.

• 8:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  And, yeah, it was, it was kind of actually something like you'd see in the movies, you know, like where they where the the police kind of all rushed in and and ripped the house apart.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  And I just remember that, you know, the house being torn apart and then the next minute mum was gone, you know, so.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  And you're sitting there, probably police looking after you initially, people you've never, these are the people that you, from an early age, you've probably feared.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Come storming storming in into your house. What what was done with you at that point?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  So I stayed with different family members for a while.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Um, some of which were better than others at caring for me.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Um.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  You know, um, one was an auntie who was actually really good and and that was a. Kind of a stable period, I guess, you know, she really cared for me and which I look back on with some fondness.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  And another was a grandparent who wasn't so, it wasn't a good environment. Yeah.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  When, when you say that, what, what type of, type of things were happening?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Oh, just, just a bit neglect for, which messes a little kid's head up. And it's expected because that was my, that was the same person that had been abusive to mum as well growing up. So it makes sense that he wasn't going to be great with me.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  Well, again, this is the, the, the type of things that just carry on from generation to, to generation.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Did you experience any abuse in, in those environments?

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Not, not that kind of abuse from them.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Not sexual abuse, just the emotional abuse and, and neglect.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  Um, how long did you go back to your mum after she got out of prison?

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, I did. So she did some time in, in prison and then went to rehab for a little bit. And then we got back together. Kind of interesting story. She was actually meant to do a little bit more time than that. But there was a, the Minister for Corrections at the time, I don't know if you remember the Rex Jackson, I think his name was.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah. So there was a, a thing where, and I can say this now, she's passed, so it doesn't really matter.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the, the people she was working for paid him off to have her sentence reduced. So.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Okay. As bizarre as that sounds, my recollection of the historical situation, Rex Jackson was the Correctness Services.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  That's the one, yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Minister. And I think he ended up getting exposed for taking money for early release of prisoners.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  And, yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  She benefited from that thankfully, for mum.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  Okay. She, she was the ones that.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  She was one of the ones that benefited, which was good for me.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Well, the fact that she was connected to people, had the ability to reach out to the, the minister. Um, tells you the, the sort of way she was living a life.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  It sure does. Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  So the period of five, five to 12, talk us through.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, you know, at that period, I kind of, I really looked up to mum at that point.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  You know, um, she was more like an older sister than a mum to me. You know, I never called her mum. I always called her by her first name.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  I've, I've never, I never referred to her as mum ever, you know, and not until as an adult.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  And, um. Yeah, I looked up to her, but she she really suffered, like she really suffered with addiction. She had like a a terrible car accident and had a lot of chronic pain. And then, you know, all the the abuse and stuff that she had as a kid. And growing up, I I blamed her so much, you know.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  So mainly.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. It was like, why, why doesn't she love me the way I see other people being loved or the way you think a parent's meant to love you?

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  And it wasn't until I was older and had my own problems.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  That you've realised.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  And I went, oh, okay. So she was just a, you know, when I thought she was an adult, she was in her twenties.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  You know, and she was, she was really suffering too. And that doesn't mean that the neglect and abuse didn't happen, but it just means I understand.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  You you you understand where it's coming from.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  What about schooling? Did you have it, regular schooling? Did you have?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Not really. School was pretty, so we moved around a lot.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Um.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Still around the Wollongong area, just different.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  ACT, but every six months we'd move. So back then, um, you know, when you were selling drugs, you moved regularly because people would know where you lived.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  So you'd have to move regularly.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  So so for us, we moved every six months because of that, really. And that was either generally to a completely different area. Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  Did you have have any role models, anyone that showed you love and and direction?

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Not really. Like, my my grandmother really cared for me a lot.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, I that was something I definitely struggled with, and especially male role models. There was, there was none.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  The void. Yeah.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that was something that I definitely struggled with growing up, trying to find my identity as a male. Yeah.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, so moving, moving around comes with that its own inherent complications. The not being able to form friendships and and relationships and that. Your submission that you did to the parliamentary inquiry, as I said at the start, it was very powerful. And I'm gonna read a couple of things out from there because I just think that, and then I'll get you to talk about it. And I I'm looking at my notes here and I said, I'm reading through this, it just made me sad, disappointed and even angry.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  So. Okay.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  This is from the submission that you you made made to Parliament.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  I was only twelve when I was arrested for the first time for minor property damage. By then, I'd already been failed by schools, child services, police and adults I had trusted. Multiple opportunities to get me the help I needed had been missed. I remember when I first arrested, I was living in a tin shed in a backyard with a pile of blankets for a bed. Police knew I was being abused, but they still returned me to the dangerous home after they arrested me.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  That's.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Heavy.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, but and it's interesting, like for me, when I when I hear that.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  It kind of doesn't seem like anything to me. And then I I have to try and think about what that sounds like to other people, you know, and I and I think about my friends who have got young kids that are the same age now, you know, and I look at them and and that's when it really hits me. When I see another another twelve year old and I go, fuck, they're like, they're just a little kid.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  You know, and yeah, like for me, the the reason I was in that shed was because it was unsafe in the house, you know, so that was actually a a that was a place of refuge for me to go to. Yeah, I just I felt very unwelcome in the home. So for me, that was a place of refuge.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  The tin shed with a pile of blankets for a bed.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  What concerns me is that the police knew I was being abused, but they still returned me to a dangerous home after they arrested me. Not blaming individuals, I I'm talking the the system here.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  It is a failing, isn't it? Like I I I look at it and think, okay, why have we got this so wrong?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  And and you know what? And sometimes when I when I used to think about it, I thought, oh, well, maybe this is because that was back then. Things are different now.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  And I think, oh, well, that that only happened because it was, you know.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, different, different rules.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Different time.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  And then now working in the industry I'm working in and realising it's not, it hasn't changed.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  And even though the people know that things should be done better and that, that, that children should be cared for.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  The same thing is still happening.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  You know, we're still locking up hundreds of kids and putting them in prison.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  And we're not caring for the children that actually need to be cared for. And like I said, we're punishing them. And, and for me, that, that in the way the police took me back to that environment, that, that was punishment.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  You know, because I was told you're, you're a bad person, you're doing something wrong. Um, and you need to change your behaviour.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  And it, it's almost a, a cry for help and it would be so confusing and that, that's what makes me sad. Thinking of what's the mind of a twelve year old. And when the narrative is let's crack down on crime and, and all that.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  What, yeah, what, what hope has a child got growing up in an environment like that with no role models? Uh, being abused. And I can imagine that the type of people that your mum would have been attracting.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Uh, coming in and it's just, I, I saw that in policing. I saw it, the.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Horrible results in, uh, in homicide, that the, the new man coming into, uh, coming into the environment.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Just has a dislike for the kid, for the kids.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  It's almost like that, the animalistic animal kingdom, like lions killing off the, uh.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  The, the cubs of, uh, the other lions.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  It's true because no man wants to support another man's child.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And they're seen as a threat and that's, that's kind of biological.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Well, not, not good men or not, uh.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  That's right. That's true.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Proper, proper men. I read out, uh, I read out a, another, another quote again, cause it's so powerful.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Um, six months later, I was found by police living on the streets, forced to starve to escape from further abuse at home. But no support was provided to me. There was no curiosity from police about why such a young child would choose the streets over shelter. No questions about what was going on for me and that no attempt to make sure I had food and a safe place to sleep. Police returned me to an environment they knew was dangerous. I was immediately violently assaulted.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was repetitive, you know, and it happened. I could barely even count how many times, you know, I remember another time being taken home by the police and being punched in the face in front of the police.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  In front of the police.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  You know, and that was acceptable.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Because I was, like I say, I was a bad person and, and I think that, you know, and I, I, I, as an adult, I don't hate police. And even as a, as a, in my twenties, I never had that kind of feeling of hatred towards police. As a kid, I definitely did.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  You know, and it was what I was taught, you know.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Oh, the, the environment.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely, I was taught to do that, but I understand that when you're interacting with people, even if they are children and that person swears at you and tells you to fuck off and calls you names and, and you just see them and you see their behaviours, it's understandable at face value to not like that person.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  You know, because you, you go, this, this seems like a bad person. But I think it does take effortful curiosity to go, why is this person doing what they're doing? And I don't know if that's something that is taught in policing or not.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Well, you.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  But it needs to be.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, you, you've made, made me reflect and I think there's times when, early in my policing where I would have taken kids home and I, I can hear the, the parents yelling at the kid or whatever, but there was a judgment call, I would hope to think that, okay, well this is normal discipline.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  But, yeah, the curiosity will hold it, why is he running away the whole time? And, yeah, we, we talk about child sexual abuse and you, you're not saying that, but I, I look back and think of all these troubled kids and wonder what you've been inside, you've been in prison and you see how many, uh, uh, people are in there, men and women, because of, uh, something that's happened to them in the past. But, yeah, the role of policing, protect or prosecute, twelve, twelve year old kid.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  It's a, it's a, it's a hard, uh, hard thing.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that was something, I don't know if you wanted to touch on that, but that second time when they took me back, I'd literally just been sexually assaulted, you know, so.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Um, so the, I'd gone back out onto the streets.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  And. Because I thought that was safer than being at home.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Um.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  And um I was trying to escape what was going on at home.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  And I'd been missing for months, you know, and the police had been looking for me for some time and no one knew where I was.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I ended up at a refuge, um like a children's refuge.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and some young boys took me out to the park and got me drunk and one of them, you know, sexually abused me.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  And then going back to the refuge, a couple of days later, the the people at the refuge found out that police were looking for me.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  And basically said to me like, you know, you need to go back home, you know, will you go back home? And me at that age saying, I'm not gonna go back home.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  But I told them I'd go back home and they gave me a bus fare and and said, okay, make your way back home.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  And how how old were you?

• 20:28Speaker 01

  I was twelve.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Twelve.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so I just ran again, basically, and then it was it was probably about a month after that police found me. And again, there was like, if ever there was a time where there should have been some, you know, curiosity into what's going on and what's happened to this kid, like after being missing for months. And I didn't see a doctor, I didn't see a psych, no, no one.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  I was gonna ask ask you that, I I was just thinking, how would police deal with that? Okay, we've called a runaway kid.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  And it was always about, okay, from a policing point of view, and it doesn't sound good when I say it from a policing point of view. How can we take our our responsibility away from this? Where can we put the kid that, not to be further harmed?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  Put the kid safe, but I can't recall in all my time in policing, someone saying, hey, we need a psychologist to sit down. Have have a chat with this uh this child.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  I'd I'd like to think we got a little bit wiser now, but I I see how it just uh catches up. A couple of things that I I pick up on that, um, yeah, your father's lawyer advised you not to seek bail when you're in uh detention at one stage. Because it was safer being on the streets.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  What what was that about?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, again, so, you know, this was after, um, this is a bit later on in life now, so about fifteen, sixteen. And um I was homeless again.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And um, yeah, I'd. At that point, I was literally starving. I'm not even joking, like, I'm not exaggerating.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  You know, I was living in a squat with a bunch of other guys and we had, we had zero money, you know, and we were, we were. It was like a really intense and desperate, desperate sort of situation that we're living in, you know. And, um, and we're also really, really angry, you know, and we all felt like the, the, the system had failed us and, you know, we thought that it was everyone else's fault. And, yeah, and so, you know, we, we'd done some breaking enters to steal food.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  And then we did a robbery, you know, myself and about four other guys did a robbery and, um. Yeah, it was a horrible, horrible situation, a horrible thing to do. I'm not going to say situation.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  A robbery like an assault and rob?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Someone on the street or a store?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  It was a store, yeah. And, you know, we went in in the morning, a, a newsagent.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  You know, and, yeah, I'll, I'll tell the story. It's a really, it's definitely not something I'm proud of at all, you know, but we, we walked in and, and I punched him.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Thinking I was going to knock him out and then we were just going to take the money and, and cigarettes and whatever else was there and.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he didn't get knocked out straight away.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  You know, and then one of the other fellows, fellows, we just really gave it to him.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  And we, we robbed the place and then we left. And, um. It wasn't long after that we were arrested and I think it was pretty obvious that maybe we'd had something to do with it because we, we'd been causing so much trouble in that neighbourhood for some time, you know, and. Yeah, so we were arrested and, and I, and that's when I went into juvenile the first time.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  You know, and, and that's when my dad's lawyer, I'd reached out to my dad. I really wasn't in contact, contact with him very much, but I knew he had a lawyer and, you know, so I reached.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  Had he been in and out?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he's probably maybe twenty years old. Yeah, for robbery and fraud and, and all that kind of stuff.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I reached out to him and he just said, look, you're better off staying in there because you've got nowhere to live, you know, so it's better just to stay where you are, you know, and.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  I can kind of see where he was coming from.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Because look at where I was. I had no food. I had nothing.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  Tell us about, give a sense, because most people, we hear of, you know, kids living on the street and all that.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  But tell us about your experience. Like, okay, you've got nowhere to go. You're twelve, thirteen, fourteen, it doesn't matter.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  The world's a scary place.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Sure is.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  And when the sun goes down.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  And everyone's gone, gone to their home. Talk, talk us through your thinking and the life of a kid on the street.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  I'll say the first, the first thing, and this is like something that like pervades every moment of every day, is the loneliness.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  You know, like you're very, very lonely because you, you know that something that is needed is missing. You know, you don't have the care and the love that you're meant to have.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  So you, you feel very alone.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Besides, you know, besides like what's going on on an emotional level, you're looking to do anything you can do to, to take that feeling away, which generally is drugs and alcohol.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  When it comes to what you do at nighttime, you're looking for somewhere warm to sleep.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  You know, and somewhere safe to sleep. And generally, um, you find other kids to hang out with, you know, not adults.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Because they're more dangerous, you know, so you find other kids to, to hang out with.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  And just on that, the, you, you know, the adults are dangerous because they'll take advantage of you.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah. They, they might, they could do anything to you.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  You know, so.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  And where do you find those kids?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Around like.

• 25:54Speaker 00

  I know you, you.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  The homeless kids always seem to gravitate and, and how, what, what's you, how do you find each other?

• 26:02Speaker 01

  I'm guessing it's like just networking, you know, you, you, you see other kids and, and you recognize each other.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  You know, as being homeless and someone will kind of take you under their wing.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  You know, when, when a new kid comes onto the street.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Other kids will kind of take them under their wing and, and, you know, come and say, live with us and, and they teach you how to survive.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, for me at, at twelve, that was learning things like. Sleeping under trees at night because it was warmer, you know, um, or sleeping underneath cars to keep the the like the rain or the cold off. And these are things that a normal kid that has a home doesn't know to do.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  And I would imagine Woolongong Canberra during the winter.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was Canberra. It was freezing.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  It was cold, yeah, yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  You could seriously die out in there.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  So, uh, uh, how many, uh, how many people did you, uh, hang around with?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Uh, usually there'd be points, we'd be nearly a dozen of us.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, like between a dozen and you'd usually kind of pair up.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  You know, you'd find a mate or something and that'd be your, your buddy that you'd kind of rely on. And you'd actually be, you'd really rely on each other.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  Did you have to like break in the houses or factories or shops, uh, to find the place to sleep?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  That would be.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  An attractive option.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  And it was hard in the city because there's less of that kind of thing to get into. Yeah. Sometimes like one of the older kids would go and try and and rent a property, which we knew we wouldn't. No one would rent to them, but then we'd leave windows open and then.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  And then go at night and and break in and and sleep and then try and get out before anyone came back in the morning.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  Showing.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  That was probably, that was probably the nicest place to sleep, yeah, if we could ever do that.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Um, otherwise it was just stairwells and and that kind of thing, yeah, car park stairwells.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  People would, you'd start to see a group like that and did you have anyone other than the police pay attention to you from a uh, way of helping, helping you guys?

• 28:07Speaker 01

  No, and that's the, that's the most bizarre thing when I look back, you know, we, we would spend so much time at at youth centres in the daytime.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  You know, because they were like a, a place to hang out and it was accepting of us in the daytime. But not once did anyone reach out to me and say like, have you got somewhere to live tonight?

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  You know, it was like, it was like at five o'clock, the doors shut and their, their job was over.

• 28:33Speaker 00

  And you, you were carrying your, your worldly possessions.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, all in a bag.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  In, in a bag and there's no um.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  Um, uh, source of income?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  None. Yeah. Other than shoplifting and selling whatever I could shoplift, yeah.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  So the life you're painting isn't, isn't very attractive, but you're saying that was a better option than, than being, being at home?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  It was, yeah. And that's the, I guess that's the most tragic thing, isn't it? That, that's, that was a better option.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  And it actually was. I, I mean, the, the sexual assault definitely

• 29:10Speaker 01

  made it not a better option, you know, um.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  But, but the, the, the sexual assault stemmed from you being in a, a, a.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  A youth refuge, but because I was homeless, yeah.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  Right. And then there was someone that, that there to look after you that sexually assaulted you or just.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  No, it was one of the other kids.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Other kids.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of the other older, older boys there, yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  I suppose they're, they're.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  And they're probably.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  Acting out things.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Probably stuff's happening to them as well.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  That they've learned.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that really messed with me.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  Any of the people that you're associated back then didn't make it through or?

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, what, give us an example about.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  That was so, that was so common to, even as a young teenager and to know that people were going to be dying.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  That was like really common and, yeah, it was, it was expected that you would go in a year's time, that person might not be alive. Now, I remember one really sad one was a, there was a, a young boy down in Wollongong who, there was a, a big thing down in Wollongong at the time where it was one of the ex-mayors down there.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Frank Akell.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. He'd been involved in, you know, child sex.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Um, trafficking.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  And, um.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  I remember when he was murdered.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  That's right. So I knew those boys who did that.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I knew one of them.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  From that time when I was on the street.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  You know, and, yeah, so the one of, one of the boys that he'd done that to killed himself, you know, and hung himself under a bridge, you know, so. It was, yeah, you just knew that kids, some kids just couldn't take it.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  It was just too much for some people.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  And that, that's not the type of thing you should, yeah, feel that is part of the world.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  That's true, yeah.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  At, at, at that time. And then you've got someone like the, the Frank Arkell, supposedly a person in the position of power.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  So much power.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, he met the gruesome death.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  He sure did. And, and the sad thing is those boys that did it still went to jail and, you know, ultimately they're the ones who still suffered, you know, which is really, really sad.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  Did any of the kids progress through it and then come back and say, hey, there, there's another way? Did, like, I'm, I'm trying to clutch on that.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 31:26Speaker 00

  But did you get any role models that sort of?

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Not back then. It was too, you know, I, I continued moving around a lot and I've lost contact with most people. I think back to those kids sometimes, you know, and, and wonder how they went. And I really hope they did, you know. We're, we're like a little family, you know.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  How, looking back at, at those times.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  What are the things that could have put a circuit breaker in the direction your, your life was heading in? What, what do you think could have made a difference?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. So, and I guess this is like the, the things I'm about to say now is the same for the other kids currently that are going through the same thing, you know? And it's, it's like wrap around community services.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  You know, to firstly, to provide accommodation, if they need accommodation, if it's kids that are homeless. If it's kids that have just left home and finding out what's going on at home, is it a problem where the parents are the problem or is it something else?

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Why though?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  And if it's something else, can we get them back home?

• 32:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  It's like, yeah, supporting them, um, if they've got mental health stuff going on, because a lot of the kids running away have got mental health. Or maybe they're, they're realising that they're, they're queer.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  And their parents are accepting, and that's a lot of homeless kids like that. You know, because their parents are not accepting of that and they're either their parents kick them out. So it's not even they're running away, they're actually kicked out.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  Well, the parents have laid in shame on them and.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, so if that's the case, getting them into services that that understand that and can support them like that.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Um, and it's not criminalizing them, you know, and saying that we need to care for them and and not not criminalize them.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  What about you you're charged by police and yeah, we've sort of had a look at how how the police handle it.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  But then it goes to court, there's another opportunity for the the system.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  To really go, hold it, what's going on here? In fact, it's probably set up better than the police.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Did you find anyone, uh, yeah, when you kept appearing before the court, did anyone?

• 33:30Speaker 01

  I had a I had a juvenile justice officer who was actually really good.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  You know, and when I say he was good, I felt like he genuinely cared.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Which was something that no one else did, and that meant a lot to me, you know, that.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  That'd be something new to.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Really meant a lot, yeah, and it's something I carried for with me for a long time is something that, you know, really had helped.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  But that care could only go so far, you know, and it's not like I could move in with him. So I still needed somewhere to live and I was um going to crisis refuges. That's where I'd been bailed to crisis refuges, but for me, my experience in that, in the refuge I went to at that time.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  It was really like, um, it was like triage.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  You know, it was like, we'll just try and manage things, but not actually heal anything.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  And.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  That that's that's interesting. So there there's an attempt, but from a person that's been through that.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  Didn't think it it delved.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  It wasn't enough, it wasn't enough.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  And for me personally, which and this isn't the case for all people going into this kind of situation. But it's definitely something to be mindful of. It's the it's who are who are you employing to look after these kids?

• 34:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Because for me, that was another time where I was abused again, so.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  Talk talk us through that, what happened there?

• 34:53Speaker 01

  So, so, yeah, I was living in in this crisis refuge and there was a counselling.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Made available to all the kids there, which on, on the face of it, seems like a, a really good thing, you know, and in the right circumstances could have been a good thing.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Um, but for me, this counselor basically gr- groomed me from, from the start, you know, and, and I'd, I'd opened up to him about the assault that had happened with me, you know, and that, and he was actually the first person I, I told about it.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  You know, and, um,

• 35:26Speaker 01

  I opened up to him and, and let him know that, like, I was questioning my sexuality and stuff. So I really opened up to this guy.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  And, um, yeah, and he just really took advantage of that and, and that led to, yeah, to more abuse.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  That's, uh, because if you're that way inclined as a predator to, to abuse, uh, abuse kids, it's just the perfect environment, isn't it? Vulnerable, uh, vulnerable.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Kids or teenagers.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Coming into an environment, environment like that. What did that do for your, your trust of the system and?

• 36:04Speaker 01

  That, yeah, that, that caused so many issues for me growing up, you know, and it really, really stuck with me. Um. Firstly, it, it meant that I was acting out, you know, and so my behaviour had gone from bad to worse.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  You know.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  What, becoming violent?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I was already a, I was already had a, a very short temper and prone to violence.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  But now it was just gone to another level where anything anyone would do or say, I would just react, you know, and, and, you know, breaking windows around the refuge and breaking things and screaming at people and threatening people. And obviously they're not going to accept that kind of behaviour and basically just exited me immediately.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Then you, you, you back out.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  So then I was back homeless again and breaking bail and, you know, so. And I I suppose the staff at the time weren't to understand what was going on with me. They just didn't see my behaviours.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  At that point in time, with all the the damage, and I I say it's damage that's been done to you at that point in time, because we've still got you in that fifteen, sixteen a age.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right, yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  Is there any way or anything that you think could have stepped into, yeah?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Change, steer you around? What what would you propose? Like, because I bring it back to what we started about.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  Like, let's get tough on on crime and and we could look at you and look at your history and go.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Put him in jail.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  You you've you've had your chances, buddy. You're you're you're inside.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I can see that because it's I was I was a threat to the people around me.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, and and that is that is a public sentiment and that we touched on it earlier, but yeah, they're scared. They're worried about about about crime. So you can understand where they're coming from.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  I can.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  But let's just take a step back and look at it from a different different way. What could have been done for you at that stage that may have made a difference?

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Um, and I think before before I say what I think could be done, I think when you see a a young person whose behaviour is so bad and they are acting up so much. And the ones that we're saying like this kid is so bad, we're going to put them in jail.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  This is about two hundred, bit over two hundred kids in jail currently.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  In in when we say jail.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  I'm in prison, children's prison.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Children's prison, yeah, yeah.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Yep, so there's about two, oh, two hundred and forty or something like that kids in New South Wales prison. Those are the kids, but if it gets to that point, they're the ones that we say, okay, what do we, what? Something's gone wrong here.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? This is not, this is not normal for it to to progress this far.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  So they're the ones where we go, okay, these are the ones that really need care.

• 38:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  And I think the only way to. Turn a child like that around, and they are children.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Like, we're talking about children.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  We, we say, forget that.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're children, right?

• 39:00Speaker 00

  When you, when you look back at, yeah, I look back at my life and think, I thought I knew what the world was at sixteen. I knew jack shit.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  It's true, yeah.

• 39:08Speaker 00

  Even when you're, yeah, early twenties, you still don't know what life's about. So, yeah, we'll, we'll hold on to that thought that we're talking children here. Okay, so it's a, a child that has gone off, off the rails for a whole range of reasons. And you've given by way of an example why you went off, which to me, it seems perfectly normal. If I went through what you went through, I'd be doing what you were doing, I would imagine.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  That's true. There's two things that will happen. You'll either, you'll either really push back like I did, or you'll kill yourself.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, you'd just be completely broken.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  That's the two options, yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  So, okay, so getting back to what, what we could do, yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  So, I think that's a perfect example of we need to care for that kid, that child.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  You know, and there's already some services, um, uh, operating in, I know there's one in Redfern called Wave, I think.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Um, they've got some really good statistics on, and, and results.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  And reducing recipitism of young people down to like really, really like single digits.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Um, compared to like above fifty percent recipitism. And there's, we need services that are, um, culturally appropriate. A lot of these kids that are going in are indigenous kids, so it needs to be culturally appropriate.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  And it needs to be genuine care. And like when I said, when I look at that juvenile justice officer I had, he genuinely cared and that made a difference.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  So we, we need genuine care and, and the, the support needs to match what that child needs. So that's, it is psych, psychological. A big part of it is therapy, if that's what they need. And it's connecting them to community in a healthy way, giving them role models. You know, other people that have made it out, you know, and, and modeling good behaviour. It's, you know, showing them that there's another, another possibility and that there's another future if they're able to.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  To to put one foot in front of the other, get them back to school. You know, and and maybe they need a tutor, but it's it's a lot, they need a lot of care. But it's but it's cheaper than sending them to prison.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Fiscally, like if we we just sold it on the on the financially viable, a lot cheaper. I see the work that Shane Phillips does with Tribal Warrior and Clean Slate Without Prejudice. And like, they've been doing that for a long time and it's been working and it it changed changing lives.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's another one, Healing the Warrior.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  That's doing great stuff as well.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  All all all those ones are doing it and I know they they run on the smell of an oily rag half half the time.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  So when we talk about money and we need we need Vince here or Claude, because they've got all the facts, they've got all the stats and figures. We'll dial dial back to them. But I I think I've heard the figure of something like two hundred thousand dollars a year to keep a child in in custody.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  I think it's more than that.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, okay, I was I was aiming high because I think, yeah, because I was surprised how it was a lot higher than keeping an adult in in custody for twelve months. So, okay, let's let's throw in two hundred and fifty thousand for each child in in custody. Boy, a lot could be provided with money instead of having one child in custody. And then the chances of being in a juvenile detention centre, the likelihood of them going into adult prison.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  It's it's very, very likely. I can't remember the stats off the top of my head, but it's more it's more than fifty percent. I think it's about eighty percent.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I think it's up that up that high, so.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  And I just want to mention one thing too, just in case people don't realise that the age of criminal responsibility in New South Wales currently is ten years old.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Ten years old, so what ten year old knows the difference between right and wrong to start with? And and if they've got all this stuff going on at home and they're, you know, and they've got all these. These other issues going on, how can they make sound decisions and then be responsible for their behaviour?

• 43:06Speaker 00

  And we, you hear campaigning, and I think it's Queensland more so than New South Wales, but talking about lowering the age of criminal culpability.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  I think so, I'm not sure.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  And for ten, so you can't be charged under ten, but you can be charged over ten, if you're over ten years of age, if you knew what you did was was wrong. So I think that goes up to up to fourteen.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 00

  But you've you've changed my thinking in that, yeah, protection or prosecution.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  And just that that one sort of sentence.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Makes a big difference, doesn't it?

• 43:41Speaker 01

  It does.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  Because we, and I'm looking from the, you know, I've still got the the cop gene running running through me.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 00

  Okay, if they've done the crime, we're gonna lock them up, put them before the courts and then move on to the next one.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Because it's a system we we trust and we put trust in that system to to do the right thing.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  To keep us safe, you know, there's that idea that when people are dangerous, we want them out of the community, you know?

• 44:07Speaker 00

  And like the crime that you said that you you're embarrassed by.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Like a crime like that happened now, that would be on the front page of the paper. And there'd probably be video images of.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  The four of you storming into a newsagent with a balaclava, balaclavas on and assaulting the shop owner.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  It'd be the lead story.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  But when you did it, it would have, I don't think it would have.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  It was a newspaper, that's it.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it would have just got got a mention. Okay, so we're saying there should be a better way.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  I look at, I I see these, yeah, and and people say, oh, why are you rewarding people for being bad? You know, where you see kids being taken out to to the bush, to camp.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Camps and all this stuff, yeah, yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, and and and learn respect with with good people.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 00

  I see benefits in in that type of thing. I don't, if a kid that's a troubled kid, and if we start looking at not a bad kid, a troubled troubled kid.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  We're putting effort into steering them in the right direction. It has to be beneficial.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Agreed. And and when they say like rewarding bad behaviour, I don't think there's any kid that is gonna like. Do some kind of crime, then get taken on a camp and then put two and two together and go, I was rewarded for that.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  They're separate things, you know what I mean?

• 45:22Speaker 00

  That's true. You're not smart enough to think that way.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're gonna look at it as a separate thing and they're gonna, they're just gonna take it for what it is. And I was, I was thinking about this before coming in and

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  So a lot of people might think this is like a, a right, left kind of thing, you know, um, when it comes to like

• 45:37Speaker 00

  Crack, crackdown or the, yeah.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  And, and I actually don't think it's a right, left thing. I, I try and be a bit, I do try and understand what's happening on both sides of these kind of arguments and try not to argue about it.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  And for me, I think that even if you don't care about young people or you don't care about disadvantaged people and you just really couldn't give a shit.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Even if you're like that, it's still not gonna help your community to put young people in prison.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Or even adults in prison, the way we're doing it now, because the recidivism rates, like the rates of people coming out and going back in, like fifty percent of people that go to prison, go back, if, once they're released, they go back in within twelve months.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  If they're going back in, that means they're committing another crime. So we're trying to, we've heard that, that saying police out of, police your way out of crime or punish your way out of, out of crime. It just does not work.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Well, you, you can't, I, I agree. And I, I say that as the, spending most of my career in the police, you can't arrest your way out of the crime.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  And it's so expensive, right? And I'm not saying stop all prisons. Like, I don't, I don't believe that. I just think that when people are there, it's an opportunity, even as, as adults

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  to turn their life around. Give people a chance to get educated while they're there.

• 46:59Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Give them a chance. So when they come out, they've got the resources and the skills not to go back. Because currently they come out and most, like half are released to homelessness.

• 47:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, it, it, it makes a lot, makes a lot of sense. And when we, when we're talking kids, if they haven't got the protection, uh, that we think, yeah, all kids, all kids deserve.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  That's where society's got to step up.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Now, people could be listening to this conversation, you and I talking, go, what are these fuckwits on about? Like someone will be saying, you gotta crackdown if they do the crime, you know, uh, uh, punish, punish them. Okay, it's not about getting tough on crime, it's getting smart on crime.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Agreed. I think it's a really good, I really like that.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  I'd love to say it was my, my thoughts, but it didn't, it came from Ken Marsloo.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Um, whose son was murdered in an armed robbery. Um, he formed enough is enough. Ken's sadly passed away.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:54Speaker 00

  But I would often have these discussions with him because when his son was murdered, he was the one marching on Parliament demanding for mandatory sentencing. And this should happen, that should happen.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:05Speaker 00

  How that evolved over a twenty year period, Ken started to realise, well, hold it. That's, yeah, the anger's destroying me.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  It's not making it, making a difference.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  And if we try to prevent crime.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Um, that's getting smarter on crime, not getting tougher on crime. And if you get smarter on crime, there's less victims.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  That's right, exactly.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  So the people that are gonna jump on us for saying we're trying to get too soft.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  We're trying to reduce victims.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  And that's exactly the point I'm making, yeah. And I'm glad the way you said that.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Reiterates that because that's the whole point. We're trying to, even if you don't care about the people doing it, we want a safer community. Everyone wants that.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  That, that's, that's the thing. And one thing I know, if you, if you escalate it, like as a kid.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:48Speaker 00

  That you're going through, what, we were talking about what could have changed you, steering you in a better way.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  But imagine if we came, it came down on you even harder.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  Well, how would, how would have you reacted to that?

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely, you know, and I look back and think, fortunately for me, I didn't go to adult prison until I was a lot older.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  You know, and I'm, I sort of evaded police for a long time.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  And I think back to the way I was in my younger years and how, how angry I was and how, you know, willing I was to fight at the drop of a hat. If I'd gone to prison at that age.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  I can't imagine what could have happened.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  Well, you.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  I would have, I would have been a much more dangerous person than I ended up being, definitely.

• 49:32Speaker 00

  Full, full of anger, uh, rage and, and violence that just, just explodes.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  And unfortunately, that, that's an environment that, uh, prison, prison can.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Because it's, it's a scary, traumatic.

• 49:44Speaker 00

  Create.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Horrible place to be.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  We always, uh, well, we, we talk a lot about men and young, uh, young men.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  What about the women in the situation? Did you see homeless homeless young girls? Are they going through the same same thing?

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's like when I was thinking back to the kids that I was living with at that time and the one, some of the ones I do wonder about were the girls, you know, and

• 50:10Speaker 01

  yeah, girls in that environment are even

• 50:12Speaker 00

  More vulnerable.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Way more vulnerable.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  You know, like vulnerable to sex trafficking, vulnerable to

• 50:19Speaker 01

  yeah, just guys taking advantage of them. Um.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  A lot of them end up in prostitution, you know, even me as a young guy, as a young guy at that age, you know, it was like there was a lot of the boys I knew working on the wall in the cross and

• 50:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  And that was an option that was put to me. It's like, you know, do you want to come and work?

• 50:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  I chose drug dealing instead.

• 50:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Um, and it was kind of this thing because I'd heard mum make that same choice. You know, so as a young person, it was, did she want to go into sex work? And she chose drug dealing and and I made the same choice. But it could have just gone the other way.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  What uh, what what hope have you got? Like really where you you're saying that uh, well, one lesson I learnt from mum in instead of going into prostitution, drug dealing is the more viable viable option. And when I want people to check themselves and think, what did your parents teach you? Yeah, and and that's the the environment that you you you grew up in.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that was her trying to protect me in the world that she knew I was going into, you know.

• 51:21Speaker 00

  Did you think that you had a future at all? Like you you've said, your your friends were dying and killing themselves.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Like, and, you know, I was I I was suicidal for a long, long time, you know, the the thoughts of suicide were da- daily for most of my life, probably until I was about thirty.

• 51:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  So I definitely didn't see a future. And it wasn't till around thirty where my mental health got a bit better.

• 51:46Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Um, that I kind of, that I could probably even say that I that I was enjoying my on some on some level, you know, but I I did

• 51:58Speaker 01

  always have this idea that I was trying to get better and better myself in whatever way that looked like and.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  It was a very, very slow, slow, slow journey. Yeah, and you know, when I say better myself, it doesn't mean I was a good person or making good decisions. I was just trying to be a bit better than I was the, the day before. Um, but I, I definitely made a lot of bad decisions on the way and, and people around me suffered because of that and, and I suffered as well.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  Right. Drugs and, and alcohol were you, was that your?

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Not, not alcohol. I didn't drink, yeah. But, but drugs, yeah, and.

• 52:35Speaker 00

  That was your escape?

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah, yep. And, and I spent some periods without, without taking drugs, you know, like, I think the longest I went was seven years in, in my twenties. But, yeah, um, for most of my life, uh, drugs was my, was my, the way I escaped those feelings, especially in my, in my teens and young twen-, young twenties.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  That was the only thing I knew to do to take that, that deep loneliness away.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, just winding back to the, the options, yeah, with kids.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  If, if you and I got two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to spend, there's a kid sitting at the end of the table that's, uh, thirteen, his, his life's off track.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  What, what do we do with that money to make a difference to that, uh, young, young fellow's life?

• 53:24Speaker 01

  And I think for me, you know, I'm not an expert in this.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Um, but I know that there are services that have put a lot of thought into this.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  And from what, um, I've read recently, they're talking like a hundred thousand a year, not even two hundred and fifty thousand a year.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  That they feel like they can really make a difference and an impact on that child's life.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  And prevent them from, um, going back into prison and, and give them a, a real shot.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  And like I said, a, a big part of that is getting them back into school.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Because every child should be at school.

• 53:56Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, we haven't, haven't really delved into that, but I think you went to fifteen different schools.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  Um, you haven't got much chance of education there and I'm sure it wasn't your priority, but how much difference can education, because it's self-esteem and everything that comes in the play there.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  And I think self-esteem is a big, a big part of this, the problem, I guess, or, or what's going on with, with young people and, and the adults they become. Because that lack of self-esteem is such a hindrance on, on being able to, to make positive moves, you know? And when you're a person who. When you look at yourself and all you see is failure.

• 54:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  You know, and you're told you're a failure, you're told you're a bad person and you don't have any um, any experiences of succeeding or finishing something, you know. I can't remember finishing anything until I was an adult, like way into my adulthood.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, it doesn't give you much self-esteem, does it?

• 54:53Speaker 01

  And you just think you're not capable, you know, and I think for people who haven't had that kind of experience, they don't understand how crippling that is.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  And, you know, when you see both young people and adults coming out of prison and people say, why don't they just get a job? Why do they keep going back? Why do they keep making the same mistakes?

• 55:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  So much of that is self-esteem and the fact that they don't have experience of doing something well and finishing something and, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't take much. A few little wins can really turn, can really turn.

• 55:27Speaker 00

  Big difference.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  You know, really little things can make a difference. It might be completing something that takes a week to do. And you can hold on to that.

• 55:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  And it can really make a difference.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Look, I can achieve something.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  And, uh, cause yeah, life's hard enough, even when you've got a stable fa- family around you and the, what you've, you've been through.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  We might take a break now and let, uh, let the listeners and, and viewers ponder on, on the life that you've, uh, led up until this point.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  When we get back, we'll talk about your, uh, your adulthood.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  Um, your journey into prison, which I don't think that'll come as a surprise. I just plucked that out of the air that you're going to end up in prison.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 56:06Speaker 00

  But then the, the way that you've turned your life around, the work that discovering, uh, what was on offer with Rainbow Lodge and, uh, so many other things to, uh, talk about.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thank you.

• 56:16Speaker 00

  Take a break.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Thanks, Gary.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Cheers.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Thank you.