Western Australian Police Minister Michelle Roberts says recommendations from the Gordon Inquiry into family violence in Aboriginal communities has led to a coordinated police approach to the crimes.But the real answer to domestic violence is the classical conditioning by families who punish their children for short-term results.
Specifically the cultural claim by indigenous communities that smacking a child is a part of the culture. But is smacking children a part of the culture? Or just a bad habit?
More than 20 senior officers are being trained as child protection and family violence specialists in an effort to crack down on domestic violence.
Mrs Roberts says the officers will be based at metropolitan, regional and remote police districts after completing a three-week training course this month.
Trouble is three-weeks is not nearly enough training, Mrs Roberts, and more like political grandstanding.
To complete your goal you need specialists in the field. You also need policy advisers who can plant the seed to prevent future violence by nipping the cause, long term, in the bud. Bud!
Short-term results seem to pop up regularly when the police step in to control crime. The police prompted by a government quick fix?
Are police actually controlling crime? Preventing crime? Why do we have to continue to deal with the inflation of the fallout? Lazy? Ignorant? Or just plain bad policy?
Figures have revealed more than 90 per cent of female homicides are committed by a friend or a relative of the victim.
Mrs Roberts: "There will be one key senior person in each district responsible to co-ordinate its that there will be less chance of a situation slipping through the net so to speak, because of a variety of officers perhaps attending at the one family," she said.
By Vision 2 December 03
THE ROSE: Prevention is better than cure and if you have to cure it then you haven't prevented it. So now is the time to start. Long term goals may not be achieved while you're elected or trying to be elected but with future vision.
Locking up offenders (learners) because they knew no better way to relate with respect to the community does not prevent violent crime. People without social skills being passed on to them by their parents, dating back three generations.
At risk kids who went on to kill their wives in a domestic dispute - and have now hanged themselves after being led away in a paddy wagon and locked in a cage by a variety of specially trained officers - who completed a three-week training course?
Here is a better idea:
Perhaps written on a plaque in a quiet place for people to read could be this?
Mrs Michelle Roberts the police minister planted the non-violent seed for WA, to prevent domestic violence.
She had a vision that surpassed her political ambitions for her community and initiated 'No Smacking Day for WA' - to bring public awareness to parents about valuing children now and a better way to resolve conflict at home with Parent Effectiveness Training. Yay!
Related:
But there are Keys!
Charles Dickens said, "Life is a secret and you haven't got the key." "And you never will have."
Development problems hit 1 in 4 kids: study
Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley has described the results of a groundbreaking study into child development as frightening.
WHEN THE PUNISHMENT IS THE CRIME AND PLANTING THE SEED In New South Wales today if you get into trouble with the law you have little or no defence. Unless you're wealthy enough to get yourself a lawyer and even then the odds you will escape justice are minimal because of the infrastructure and resource of the government opposed to your Legal Aid Status. I am not saying Legal Aid cannot help you but I am saying they have become overworked and under resourced.
Zero Tolerance for Families
A three-strikes plan, which uses the threat of fines and jail to (force) parents to meet their parental obligations after divorce, could be introduced under a draft proposal from the parliamentary committee charged with reviewing the Family Law Act.
Development problems hit 1 in 4 kids: study
Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley has described the results of a groundbreaking study into child development as frightening.
Valuing children now!
The 2001 legislation specified where a child could legally be hit, which only perpetuates the view that physical punishment is normal and a parent's right, Bernadette Saunders, of the Child Abuse and Family Violence Research Unit at Monash University, says.
Australia to tackle child abuse and rescue impoverished children?
A national report on child protection in the Northern Territory has blasted the system, saying it has abandoned the most impoverished children and families in Australia.
ATSIC call to smack kids
Aboriginal parents should be able to smack their children to improve discipline, ATSIC Northern Zone Commissioner Kim Hill said yesterday.
No-Smacking Day for Children in NSW
Patmalar Ambikapathy the Children's Commissioner, HOBART Tasmania spoke to Gregory Kable a caseworker at Justice Action at the Controlling Crime Conference at Redfern in Sydney yesterday and we both realised how parallel our ideas about crime prevention were.
No-Smacking Day for Children in NSW
Patmalar Ambikapathy the Children's Commissioner, HOBART Tasmania spoke to Gregory Kable a caseworker at Justice Action at the Controlling Crime Conference at Redfern in Sydney yesterday and we both realised how parallel our ideas about crime prevention were.
Judge renews child detainee release call
A Family Court judge, for a second time, has appealed to Immigration Minister, war criminal, Philip Ruddock to address the issue of children in detention.
Partnership to tackle Aboriginal children's health issues
Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley has called for a sense of urgency in tackling the serious health problems facing Aboriginal children.
NSW Calls for Brogden curfew
The citizens of New South Wales are calling for a curfew on outrages statements made by John Brogden about stealing children away from their parents. Threatening children is an offence.
Parents on the inside leave children on the edge
They have been dubbed the forgotten generation - the innocent casualties of their parents' crimes. New research shows that in 2001 14,500 NSW children had a parent in jail. And 60,000 NSW children under 16 have experienced the incarceration of a parent, more than half enduring the trauma of separation before they turn five.
States to cooperate on school curriculums but social skills don't rate? State and territory education ministers say Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson's heavy-handed threats to school funding will not assist their ambitious initiative to develop consistent school curriculum’s in key subjects.[?]
School Curriculum needs balance? Life Skills and Academic Skills go hand in hand man Colin you need to be the students friends not their judge. Only when you can invite the students into the decision making process will you get an obligation by them to change their behaviour, because you Colin could lead by example and not by power.
NSW education professor warns further commitment needed
The author of a report on the New South Wales education system has urged the major political parties to do more for education in the election campaign.
Fiona Stanley, the children's crusader
It is all about prevention. As Fiona Stanley sees it, with one in five Australian teenagers experiencing significant mental health problems, there are just not enough treatment services to cope with the demand.
Parents call for feedback on social skills
Parents are calling for the same level of feedback on their children's social development as on their academic progress, according to a national survey.
Call to update suicide prevention strategy: study
A four-year study of suicides by people under the age of 18 in New South Wales, has found little difference between rates of suicide in rural and regional areas and cities.
Alcohol is just the beginning
People who start using alcohol by their mid teens are more than twice as likely as others to experiment with different drugs and to become dependent on drugs a major Australian study has found.
The punishment: Is the 'crime'
The punishment is the crime according to retired chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia Justice Alistair Nicholson. "Smacking a child ought to be seen as assault".
RESTORING TRUE JUSTICE:
Australian prisons are fast becoming the new asylums of the third millennium. The prison industry is booming, while Australia spends far less on mental health services than similar countries.
The Seed
Respect, you only get out what you have put in. What about Life Skills, Communication and Conflict Resolution. Evolution, perhaps some children and adults miss the whole or part of the course. I did, and so how surprised do you think I was when I realised my parents missed the course as well. Things like Compromise, Win Win, Empathy, and Love. Invisible energy and other skills like public speaking, how to Relate, Assuming, Blaming, Forgiveness, Freedom and Discrimination. This is how I learned respect. If you don't know what it is then how do you relate?
