Eventually enough is enough. There are scores of teenagers and children roaming the streets at night in packs; indulging into drinking, petty crime and anti-social behaviour. Finally police have put their foot down and sent in the big guns. Now when the going gets tough, the police ring for backup to teenagers’ parents.
“Operation Enough” is an initiative recently launched by the police at the St Marys Local Area Command Centre and covers known trouble areas in Western Sydney including St Clair, Claremont Meadows and Erskine Park. It runs between 4pm and 4pm on Friday and Saturday nights.
St Mary’s local area commander Acting Superintendent Wayne Murray said “Police can only do so much in enforcing the law, but we, along with the general community, expect parents to take responsibility for making sure their kids are not engaging in criminal or anti-social behaviour.”
During a single weekend period recently, police cautioned over 50 teenagers, some as young as 13 who were aimlessly wondering the streets and parks at night. Underage drinking, illicit drugs, weapons and criminal behaviour were all targeted. But instead of taking them down to the police station, a different approach is being tried.
The ‘sting’ in the operation is to call the parents of the teenager and request that they come and collect their child immediately.
“A lot of this is about showing parents the gravity … to come and get their child in the middle of the night from a park with broken glass, graffiti, alcohol – it’s a reality check for the parents too,” said Chief Inspector Mick Connolly.
Many parents are unaware of their child’s whereabouts; most teenagers having lied about where they are going and what they are doing. Instead they use their phones and internet to hook up with each other, making it easy for them to roam around and hard for their parents to locate them.
The situation seems compounded by the fact that many teenagers turn to their peers for support in the absence of parents who are working long hours.
Adolescent counsellor Boyd Pearson, who works in Western Sydney, said “There are consequences [with] both parents working … it becomes an accepted thing that the child is regularly at someone else’s place or away from home”.
“I’d say 95% of kids had told parents they were somewhere else. This is about restoring a bit of responsibility back to parents too. We’re not going to tolerate drunken behaviour and kids running amok, which is often a consequence,” Chief Inspector Mick Connolly concluded.
Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: Daily Telegraph
It would be interesting to see this scheme tracked. I wonder how much success there will be. Do parents want to take responsibility for their children, are they just too tired from their many responsibilities. Could it be that our culture allows too much permission to our youth and not enough responsibility?