Failure to prevent incarceration in Justice System

lead to Increase in Violent Crimes Committed by

Youths

People aged between 10-17 in Victoria are committing violent crimes and reoffending more
than they have in over a decade. According to the Crime Statistics Agency, crimes like
common assault, aggravated burglary and threatening behaviour have all steadily increased
in number and make up one third of all youth crimes in Victoria,

“The current Youth Justice System does not function well” said Senior Forensic Psychologist
Dr Karla Lopez of Victoria Police, who believes that once a young person serves a custodial
sentence, it will do more harm than good, and argues that a youth being detained can
increase future offending. “Alternatives should always be tried before considering custody,”
said Dr Lopez, acknowledging alternatives such as treatment, educational programs and
housing.

Lopez also said that these programs need to be appropriately funded and available to be
committed to the young offender for as long as their service is required, which “seldom
happens.” “Having said that, by the time a young person enters custody, it is usually a sign
of many failed interventions in the community” said Dr Lopez. “It usually signals
disengagement from education, conflict at home and possibly homelessness as well as their
own victimisation.”

Jenny Martin a Professor of Social Work at Swinburne University believes that repeat
offending depends on “what supports are available when youth leave a detention centre.”
Martin said, “people can be left behind in the justice system” and that “young people need
mentors to guide them.”

Dr Lopez said that the profile of young offenders has increased, with the media having an
adverse impact on offending at times, when young offenders may find it exciting to feature
on television or in the news. Although if a young person does end up in detention, it is
always as a last resort, Dr Lopez said, “for many people, it is not a huge deterrent when they
find their friends inside as well.”

“There are a range of programs available for youth’s in detainment, mostly offending
specific,” said Dr Lopez, however, these seem to be ineffective as the Sentencing Advisory
Council reports that although less than 1% of young people are sentences, there is a 61%
recidivism rate of 6 years, indicating that rehabilitation programs are largely ineffective.

However, Lopez believes that one triumph of the Youth Justice System is the Children’s
Court, which specialises in cases involving young offenders. The Children’s Court can
develop expertise in dealing with cases of youth offending and can do so with appropriate
sensitivity required for those situations, said Lopez.
If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be and why?
 In today’s society, there are a variety of problems that I could chose to solve which
would have positive repercussions for the world. This includes issues such as
homelessness, poverty, the Coronavirus pandemic, overpopulation, resource
depletion, unemployment and deforestation. Therefore, I tried to select a change to
the world which could have positive repercussions for a wide variety of problems,
which lead to me deciding that if I could change one thing about the world, I would
double the size of the earth. Doubling the size of the earth could solve a variety of
problems such as deforestation, unemployment, animal extinction, over
consumption, habitat destruction and overpopulation.

Every year the earth’s population grows by 83 million people (United Nations), which means
by the year 2050, it is estimated that the population of the world will have reached 10
billion. Population growth is caused both by high fertility rates of 2.5 children per woman
and also growing longevity, with humans living to an average of 72.6 years in 2019 and a
projected average lifespan of 77.1 in 2050. One way of viewing the population crisis is by
comparing human overpopulation to ‘Protozoa in a petri dish, with no natural predators,
that eat and reproduce, until they eventually hit the edge of the dish’ (Charles C Mann,
2018). Humans are fundamentally the same as the protozoa, eventually humans will fill out
the earth – as in ‘hit the edge of the dish’ – or will used all resources available to them.
However, if the size of the earth was doubled, it means that twice the amount of resources
and space will be available to sustain a far larger population, solving the planet’s population
crisis.

Furthermore, if the earth was twice its size, many issues surrounding the use of natural
resources could be solved such as overconsumption. Overconsumption is when resources
usage has outpaced the sustainable capacity of the ecosystem, meaning that the demand on
the planet is greater than the supply of resources. Fresh water reserves, animal population,
forests and fossil fuels are all dwindling in supply, threatening a growth in poverty and world
hunger in the future. It also contributes to the high amount of factory farming, as animals
are forcibly reproduced and killed to meet the high demand. If the earth was doubled in size
however, there would be twice as many resources to be consumed, meaning
overconsumption is never threatened.

Additionally, the issue of deforestation poses a major problem to the world, as 150 acres of
land is destroyed every single minute of every day. This can increase the impact of climate
change because when forests are burned or destroyed, the carbon from within the trees are
released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Furthermore, the more trees there are the
less trees there are available that are carbon dioxide sponges, imbibing the carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere and turning it into oxygen. Deforestation is also known to destroy the
homes of many indigenous groups who live in tropical forests spanning 3.6 million acres and
70 countries. If the earth was twice its size, it would result in twice the amount of forests,
reducing the impact of deforestation as indigenous tribes have abundantly more land and
there more two times the number of trees acting as carbon sponges and clearing the air.
1

While the human population is blooming – the animal population is dwindling. Over
28,000 species are threatened with extinction and this is largely due to habitat
destruction from humans. Even if a habitat is not fully destroyed, it may be altered so
much animals cannot adapt, for instance if toxic waste is dumped in a water source,
animals may not be able to adjust to using an alternative source for water. The
extinction of a species has a knock-on effect on many other species through the
existence of the food web – which displays that all animals are connected, and the
death of a species can cause the deaths of many others. The extinction of animals
could be solved however, if the size of the earth was doubled, as habitat destruction
would be far slower with twice as much habitat being present. Additionally, the
increased habitat would allow for species to grow in numbers with more are and
resources, encouraging them to reproduce, so even poaching would not lead to the
endangerment or extinction of species.

Furthermo2re, the way in which humans dispose of waste and unusable products also has
large consequences for mankind. Every day each human creates around 1.2 kilograms of
waste, meaning that everyday 8.4 billion kilograms of waste are produced, which can
pollute the environment and occupies a lot of space. The existence of a species can be
viewed as a puzzle piece on how to live on earth and when a species goes extinct, that
puzzle piece is lost (Elizabeth Kolbert 2019). The way in which humans dispose of waste
contributes to overcrowding and toxic waste in nature. This could lead to in the future,
rubbish and waste filling cities meaning disease is spread more frequently as well as being
confined to small areas. However, if earth was double its size, there would be many possible
areas to dispose of waste, for instance, Australia would be twice as large, meaning waste
could be piled up in a space the size of the Northern Territory and no one would notice or
be impacted.

As well as benefitting the environment and animals, the world doubling in size could also
benefit humans. This is because precious metals that are normally only bought by the rich
would all become more common, leading to lower prices and making them more accessible
for all people. Additionally, the increase of precious metals would create more mining jobs
and leading to a decrease in unemployment. Owning property would also become easier
due to the increase in space, meaning land would be extremely cheap in rural areas and
farmland.

There are, however, possible downsides to the earth being twice as large. For
instance, it would double the gravitational pull of the earth, meaning sports could
become less popular as athletic feats such as jumping seem half as impressive, for
instance a basketball player with a 40-inch vertical leap would be reduced to 20
inches. In the AFL, the ball could not be kicked as far, as gravity drags it down, reducing the ‘wow-factor.’ The drastically
lowered popularity of sports would negatively impact the economy possibly causing
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issues for television networks, sports analysers and players. However, since all
people would experience increased gravity, comparatively the athletic feats would
remain impressive. It is possible that there could be an even greater divide between
the rich and poor created by the earth doubling in size, as the rich can purchase
more property in the cities, which would no doubt become preferential to the
countryside as there is twice distance between towns. Still, even the poorest
members of society could likely find cheap property due to the expanse of land or
work from the increased mining opportunities.

Furthermore, if the world was larger in size could create a greater divide between the
rich and poor. It would likely make people want to live in the cities because living in
the countryside would mean travel time for goods would be doubled due to the larger
distance between travel points. This leads to the upper class buying up more land
surrounding cities and renting it out, perpetuating and extending the financial division
in society.

Another potential setback to doubling the size of the earth would be that travel times
drastically increase, particularly air transportation, currently the circumference of the earth
is around 41,000 kilometres, if that is doubled it becomes 82,000 to circumnavigate the
earth, meaning that without fuel stops it would take a plane close to 4 days to fly around
the world. Still, although travel would take longer, there would also be less wanting to
travel, because the planet would be more naturally beautiful and enjoyable from the
environmental benefits meaning people are content with their current surroundings.

Overall, due to the many different environmental and humanitarian issues we currently
have, (such as overpopulation, deforestation, overconsumption and waste disposal), if I
could change one thing about the world it would be to double the size of the earth, creating
a healthier and happier planet.
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WORD COUNT: 1,403

Bibliography
Mark Tredinnick 2006, The Little Red Writing Book, UNSW Press

Tim Hoffmann 2019, What would it be like if the earth was twice as big as it is now? Quora,
viewed 11 March 2020, https://www.quora.com/What-if-Earth-were-twice-as-big

Charles C. Mann 2018, How will we survive when the population reaches 10 billion? Charles
C. Mann, TED, viewed 13 March 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmfzwwrCrrU

Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2019, World population prospects 2019, United
Nations, viewed 13 March 2020 https://population.un.org/wpp/

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Damian Carrington 2018, Global Food System is broken, The Guardian, viewed 13 March
2020 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/28/global-food-system-is-
broken-say-worlds-science-academies

Annika Dean 2019, Deforestation and Climate change, Climate Control, viewed March 13
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Elizabeth Kolbert 2019, What we lose when an animal goes extinct, National Geographic,
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what-we-lose-when-an-animal-goes-extinct-feature/

Rinkesh 2015, Various waste disposal problems and solutions, Conserve Energy Future,
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