Full story at http://caainc.org.au/

As predictable as night follows day, all the pundits have raised their heads in condemning locking serious juvenile offenders up on remand to ensure they face court for their alleged crimes while preventing the commission of further crimes.

Be under no illusion the chances of a 10-year-old being held on remand is next to zero, as is any child. A child will have to do more than commit just one offence before the new bail laws take effect, remembering that the vast majority of young people coming before a court have already received multiple formal cautions by Police under the police diversion strategy before Police charge them and take them to court for repeated offences.

Although they may have committed more than one offence and received multiple cautions, they come before the Court as a first offender, and the cautions are not used against them.

A proper reform would be for the Police Cautions to be included in the matters put before the judiciary...