Thread by @iMusing

just #RaiseTheAge cowards. Stop giving police more powers to wreck lives. Take one away.

AG talkfest today. They would rather expand police powers to criminalise and incarcerate Black people than take away the police power to target and criminalise Black children.

the chief law officers in every jurisdiction are going to announce today that these blokes are the solution to domestic violence.

police are the last and worst responders to domestic violence. Friends, family, neighbours, workmates, Womens services - all respond sooner, and better.

police also hate responding to domestic violence. They just like the resources they can coerce from the state for expanding their powers to criminalise poor people.

explainer on addressing coercive control without criminalisation from the VALS mob here:

vals.org.au/wp-content/upl…

or watch: expert panel on addressing coercive control without criminalisation hosted by @thevalsmob, IWD 2022

copaganda is so bad that news reports on giving police more powers under the guise of addressing domestic violence can start with the Clarke story - where police failed to prevent multiple domestic homicides - and appear logical.

the Clarke story is evidence that police are disastrous DV responders.

the multiple domestic homicides committed every year are reason to defund police - who cost way more than courts and prisons combined - and redirect the money to secure accommodation for victims escaping DV.

i guess there is no white knighting gesture politics announcements in straightforward measures they could do overnight FOR FREE like cancel #ParentsNext and #RaiseTheRate and #RaiseTheAge.

i know we could create a new crime called bullying and sexual harassment, send in the cops, and they can chuck the victims in a cell.

the determinative factor is police. Children do not arrest and charge themselves. Almost all children and young people are forced to plead guilty. Many are refused bail because they are functionally homeless.

it is police who create criminality in children. The system punishes children for adults and a society that fails them. Anyone saying “youth crime” - wholly created by colonial penality - is a priority in our plague-ridden climate-emergency world needs a good long think.

even the BOCSAR concedes that police and courts use the AVO regime to accelerate mass incarceration of Aboriginal people. Carceral white “feminists” know (or ought to know) this.

bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_p…

content warning⚠️
class action to litigate prison guards vicious torture of incarcerated children in Tasmania.

abc.net.au/news/2022-08-1…

the carceral state: instead of #RaiseTheAge with the stroke of a pen, the nine Australian Attorneys General are chin wagging about how to give police - who routinely criminalise children - more power over DV victims - including children.
Content Warning⚠️