Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

Making young people public enemy No. 1

The Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations of NSW has issued a 
stinging attack on Premier Carr and NSW Liberal leader Chikarovski for 
their "contribution to the politics of fear and to the manufactured crisis 
of youth lawlessness".

Mrs Chikarovski has just announced that if the Libs win the NSW election 
they will institute stiff jail sentences for first offences by young 
people.

"Under her vision there will be no warnings, no second chances and 
misdemeanours will be enough to earn a young person a jail sentence."

When I was a kid, the cry from other kids when one of your group did 
something plainly wrong or contrary to parental instructions was "you'll 
get into trouble" (delivered as a rather sing-song refrain). But it was 
trouble with your parents that was being referred to — trouble with the 
cops was not even thinkable.

Even today, most young people caught shoplifting or spraypainting graffiti 
for the first time are mortified at having involved their parents with the 
police and the courts.

The dressing down they get from their parents is generally sufficient to 
prevent a recurrence. The courts know this,  impose a fine and let the 
family deal with the matter.

This option is now to be closed off by the Libs' proposals, and first 
offenders given "custodial sentences", with all the fear and horror and 
anger that that entails.

"Mrs Chikarovski's ... policies embrace the belief that our young people 
constitute a dire threat to public safety", says the P&C Federation, and 
"are not entitled to the same civil rights as other citizens and can only 
be controlled by the full force of the police and the judiciary".

The capitalist-owned mass media are co-operating with this campaign to 
instill in the community a fear of young people as youth who are "out of 
control".

The reporting of crime is emotional and distorted, presenting a fearsome 
picture of a society beset by random, senseless acts of violence that have 
no discernible cause or social base but can only be "fought" by adopting 
defensive postures: security screens and alarms for your homes and armed 
police to "blow the bad guys away".

As the P&C Federation says: "The real and difficult social issues like 
poverty, alienation, unemployment, homelessness, family dislocation and 
youth suicide are being ignored while the major parties shamelessly play to 
the galleries in their bidding war of simplistic, glib and totally 
discredited policies."

Discredited is certainly right: Australia was founded on the labour of 
people transported in chains to Botany Bay for seven years, under truly 
frightful conditions, for the most trivial of offences. One of my ancestors 
was transported for stealing food.

Harsh sentences provided convict labour for the American colonies and later 
for Australia, but had no effect on the crime rate in England. That 
declined with the improvement in the conditions of the working people as 
capitalism developed and needed more — and more skilled — workers.

Like terrorism, the bogey of "the drugs menace" is being thrown around in 
an unprincipled manner to scare people into accepting a heightened degree 
of police power and a corresponding decrease in democratic rights and 
liberties, things which capitalist governments could not ask for outright 
but which they sense they may need in the near future if (when) the big 
stock market crash comes.

* * *

Wall of kisses 

Graffiti of course can be of all kinds. The endlessly repeated tags of 
"bombers" on the sides of railway carriages are a form of vandalism with 
little imagination: they are essentially a way of cocking a snook at 
authority, and for kids with no future and little real education it 
probably fills a real need.

The answer to that mindless scribble is to fill their lives with meaning, 
but that requires jobs, culture, purpose and a sense of fulfillment.

There are other types of graffiti, however, that don't call down the kind 
of draconian responses being indulged in by Mrs Chikarovski.

In fact, there have been a number of books of witty, intelligent graffiti, 
taken from public noticeboards, public toilets and off "defaced" 
billboards.

I remember, the gents' toilets at the Mandolin Cinema in Sydney were a 
source of constantly renewed wall scrawls, not overly witty but hardly 
something you would wish anyone in jail for, either.

The female toilets, however, were distinctively different. The standard of 
scribble in the stalls was somewhat higher, but what impressed us most when 
we discovered it (I did not go in there as a rule you understand unless the 
plumbing needed attention) was the "wall of kisses".

At some point the wall at right angles to the washbasins (and mirrors) had 
been painted white, to cover some repair work. It was not long before 
someone, after applying their makeup turned and planted a big lipstick kiss 
on the white wall.

This was soon followed by others, until that section of wall became covered 
in them, from near the floor to where the kisser must have stood on tippy 
toe to reach.

As a form of graffiti, it was distinctive, striking and somewhat of a 
talking point. Was it a jailable offence, Mrs Chikarovski?