Crime Prevention Through Social Support

Legislative Council Standing Committee on Law and Justice

26 October 1998

Thank you for the opportunity to address the issue of crime prevention through social support from the point of view of ethnic groups within the community. As the title of this conference suggests, social support structures can reduce crime rates. For a long time, crime has been thought of in a monolithic way – it happens and it happens in certain places among certain people. Social support is important in a general sense because it looks at crime in a different way. It challenges the idea that crime will go away if we police streets heavily, make tough laws and put offenders in gaol. We see that these methods fail when they are presented as the only solution to crime.

Today’s conference gives us the opportunity to look at crime in a different context that begins to explain it. It presents crime as a phenomenon which we can only make sense of when we understand the social atmosphere in which people and institutions interact.

This is important when looking at the question of whether there is a link between ethnicity and crime. We hear all too often that the link is obvious. Many people in the community believe that migrants commit crime because it comes with their cultural background or that it is in their genes. These views contribute to the view that types of crime are specific to people of certain backgrounds.

What these views do not take into account is that a person’s background and environment can affect their behaviour. When we look at our own community and try to reconcile crime, social support and cultural diversity, then the link between ethnicity and crime is not so obvious.

High unemployment, low socio-economic status, and disrupted family life are all factors which contribute to crime. There is a very clear relationship between socio-economic factors and crime. People from ethnic communities are no more or less susceptible than anyone else to the pressures of poverty, unemployment or poor education. A person does not commit crime because of their ethnicity. Crime exists in relation to the circumstances that surround the way an individual or a community lives. It is this difference that is often ignored and which leads people to confuse those circumstances with ethnicity.

Social support services help to bridge the relationship between poor socio-economic circumstances and crime participation rates. It is therefore important that social support services reach everyone in the community. This can only happen if the providers of that support look at the barriers which can prevent services from reaching particular individuals and groups.

If government programs are relevant to rural as well as metropolitan areas, then agencies need to ensure that programs are designed so services reach people in remote areas. Likewise, programs need to consider illiteracy in the community and not promote and deliver services in a way that privileges those who can read and deprives those with literacy problems. Agencies without facilities such as elevators, ramps and tele-typewriters prevent a whole group of people with disabilities from accessing their services.

Similarly, ethnic communities are often faced with the difficulties of culture and language when they try to access services. This can limit their opportunities to develop and contribute to the wider community.

Services such as family support, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, basic education and health access are all central to the ability to live independently and contribute fully to the community. Information about services and where to get them is vital to make sure that all members of the community have equal access and the best chance at participating in the community. Because these services achieve basic living skills for those who are disadvantaged socio-economically, then to go without them increases the chances of delinquent and criminal behaviour.

For example, if drug rehabilitation programs are not promoted to people with limited English language skills, or they are at odds with cultural norms or customs, then there is a whole group of people who will be excluded from receiving help. When criminal behaviour follows, then it becomes quite clear that it is not the result of that person’s ethnicity that they commit crime, but because of the drug dependency and the needs that arise from that. Nevertheless, that person’s ethnicity was an obstacle to gaining the support that could have avoided criminal behaviour.

The Ethnic Affairs Commission encourages all State government agencies to turn their attention to designing and delivering services across the community that are culturally sensitive and appropriate. NSW Government agencies are guided by the principles of cultural diversity which help them to do this. The Principles are more than an aid though. They form the basis of an obligation that all agencies have to report to Parliament on what they are doing to make participation and access by ethnic communities easier. They report on these initiatives through the Ethnic Affairs Commission. The Commission also assists them to identify areas where particular support is needed for communities.

This duty recognises that some community groups face additional difficulties in accessing services because of language and cultural background. This also means that they may have particular needs that must be considered when designing and delivering those services.

The legislative framework that allows the Commission to check and balance government agency programs also allows us to work closely with particular agencies on identified areas of need. The main focus is on agencies that have a primary role in delivering welfare services as well as agencies whose business is law and justice enforcement.

Law and justice agencies therefore need to look at working with the community. This helps to improve services and shifts the attitudes that both law enforcers and community groups have towards crime as a social phenomenon. With a new understanding of crime and its causes agencies can redirect and redesign services to reflect the real needs of the community. Two examples of the work being undertaken in this area are with the NSW Police Service and the Department of Juvenile Justice.

The Commission is doing a lot of work with Police on how Police are seen in the community. This affects the ability of Police to best respond to and prevent criminal behaviour. These areas include building a culturally diverse Police Service, looking at prejudice-related crimes, using interpreters and developing community relations. The Police and Community Training program (also known as PACT) involves Police working with communities at the local level.

The project challenges the idea that police regulate passive communities. It encourages communities and police to work together to find local solutions for local problems. This gives members of the community the chance to voice their opinions and to draw on the support of the Police in keeping the community safe. At the same time, it allows Police to see their role as one which is to co-operate with the community in finding solutions to crime by looking at what aggravates it.

This approach is especially important for ethnic community groups because it gives them the forum to talk about the particular problems that face them because of their cultural and language backgrounds. Social support, in this way, becomes central to the question of crime prevention and community safety.

Social support also aims to prevent re-offending behaviour. Again, support services for the community as well as offenders need to be appropriate for culturally diverse groups. In relation to young offenders from ethnic backgrounds, the Ethnic Affairs Commission is working with the Department of Juvenile Justice to make programs accessible. Again, it is about looking at the programs that Juvenile Justice delivers and making sure that everyone in the community can access them.

Youth conferencing is an example of this. Set up under the Young Offender’s Act, the scheme has the potential to change offending behaviour by dealing addressing it in the community context. Youth conferencing tries to keep young offenders out of Court and corrective institutions by analysing the offence with all those affected by it. It is a direct example of working with the community in its own setting to address the problems that directly affect it. From the point of view of offenders with ethnic backgrounds and their families, the whole idea of conferencing needs to translate into a process that can accommodate their cultural and language needs. Otherwise, the service is not accessible and is likely to fail. In this sense, the Commission is working with Juvenile Justice to make sure that both the aim and the process of youth conferences are relevant to as many people as possible.

So, we can see that there are many ways to respond to crime if we try to understand it as a product of social conditions. When we do place it in context and recognise its link to socio-economic factors, it becomes clear that social support can have a direct impact on deterring and redressing crime. The point to remember is that for social support services to be effective, we need to consult the community on its needs and design services so that they respond to those needs.

In a culturally diverse society, not taking note of the particular needs and barriers that face groups from culturally diverse backgrounds can undermine the effectiveness of social support networks. Crime needs to be understood from the point of view of every individual’s relationship with the community. Only in this way can we take into account the real nature of crime, identify some of its catalysts and understand the real nature of its relationship to ethnicity.