*SOCIAL DECAY IN EVIDENCE

CARDINAL PELL HIGHLIGHTS PROBLEMS

All Australians should be grateful to Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, for highlighting in his column in Sydney's Daily Telegraph yesterday the following figures:

"In Australia imprisonment rates increased from 88 per 100,000 adults in 1984, to 168 per 100,000 in 2008.  Crimes rates, which have pointed in different directions in different areas over this period, do not explain this alone.

Mandatory non-parole periods, tougher bail conditions, and a slow criminal justice system have also contributed. 10 per 100,000 were on remand awaiting trial in 1984, but 39 per 100,000 in 2008.

Indigenous Australians are still jailed at higher rates than others, comprising 14 per cent of prisoners in 1991, but 25 per cent in 2008.  The Aboriginal imprisonment rate is 17 times higher (2195 per 100,000) than the rate for other Australians.

The situation is even worse for young offenders.  Juvenile detention rates fell for the non-Indigenous population between 1994 and 2008, but rose to 420 per 100,000 for Indigenous youth."

Despite the mitigating factors His Eminence mentions, the enormous increases in so many areas give cause for grave concern and cry out for remedial action. Hopefully this action will be positive in nature -  addressing causes and not negative - increasing penalties, creating new offences and exaggerating law enforcement efforts. Already, our society is burdened down with more and more police , carrying (and using) more and more weapons, driving more and more loudly painted cars, whilst signs warning of larger and larger penalties abound and more and more invasions of citizens' privacy and rights are countenanced as the use of oppression to address the problems grows.

But, in the meantime Governments license extended hours for drinking in many clubs, bars and pubs - in some places not closing until 5.00 am resulting in a mushrooming of alcohol related crimes and violence. 


Advertising and "entertainment"and the media become more and more provocative and accustom people to ideas of violent activity as normal and sexual misconduct as acceptable if one can get away with it.


We need a new paradigm operating in Governments to build a responsible self-respecting society , and a more ethical and responsible media which will seriously address these present day "signs of the times"with the same gusto it brings to selectively regurgitating  some Catholic clerical abuse from 40 years ago.