Why do people commit crime? Why do some people become "career" criminals? Why do some feel that they have a right or feel the need to take the property of others? Why do some people feel that they need to use violence against others to achieve their objectives, whether those aims are material goods or money (armed robberies, home invasions), control (domestic violence), revenge for a real or imagined slight, or simply to inflict pain or injury?
Perhaps more interesting, why do children and young people commit crimes? And does the behaviour of their parents, socio-economic status or their environment provide reason or motivation for this?
I don't have the answer to those questions, but as a detective at Toronto in the 1970s I encountered two instances where the influence of parents, in these cases positive influence, had vastly differing outcomes.
In August 1973, I arrested four young boys, three aged 14 and the other 16, for causing significant damage to several putting greens at a Lake Macquarie golf course.
These boys could give no explanation for their actions. None had ever been in trouble before. When I met with the parents of the boys, who were all known to each other, I was immediately struck by how distressed they were by the actions of their sons. These were good people who, by all accounts, had brought the boys up well and were bewildered that the boys would engage in such wanton damage.
They engaged the services of Bill Cannington, a wise old (or so he seemed to me then) Newcastle solicitor, widely respected and regarded. Before the boys appeared at court, Bill approached me with a novel proposal; that an adjournment for six months be agreed to on the condition that the boys attend the golf club every Saturday morning and perform whatever tasks the greenkeeper assigns them.
I spoke to the golf club president and head greenkeeper, who agreed to the proposal and the court so directed. The boys kept their end of the bargain and the greenkeeper reported to me, on a regular basis, that they were good workers who did what they were asked without resistance or resentment.
When the boys returned to court they were placed on probation and I never saw them again, although I was later told that one had gained employment at the golf club as assistant greenkeeper. I am reasonably confident that they would have grown into mature, responsible adults, and that they would have their parents to thank for the manner of their upbringing and the example they set.
In January 1976, I arrested a 15-year-old boy for housebreaking. Again, the parents were good, honest people, however they shared with me that they were having great difficulty controlling their son's rebellious behaviour. I could give them little advice; they were decent people and had obviously given the boy a good upbringing and were doing their best to impose boundaries around his behaviour, but with little success.
At court, the boy was given the benefit of a term of probation and I did talk to him about the need to curb his antisocial behaviour and to respect his parents, including the reasonable boundaries they set.
I did not see him again while at Toronto, although I was later told by my successor that he had arrested the boy for further housebreaking offences. However on my very last day at Newcastle CIB (Criminal Investigation Branch) prior to transferring to Armidale, I assisted in his arrest for the rape, in company of another well-known Newcastle criminal, of a young woman at King Edward Park.
This arrest included a short foot-chase through the streets of Hamilton after he jumped through the window of the first-floor flat where he was staying, landed on a shop awning and shimmied down a drain-pipe. We cornered him in a garage, a few hundred metres away, with the assistance of the homeowner, and I arrested him at gunpoint.
He was acquitted of that charge at trial, however two years later escaped from Cessnock Gaol where he was serving a sentence for burglary. In 2003 he was to be named by the coroner as prime suspect in the death of a young woman a short time after that gaol escape.
In the early 1990s he was a suspect in a series of rapes in Sydney's eastern suburbs. He was murdered in Goulburn Gaol in 1996.
So, two examples of young boys, all of whom were brought up in good circumstances by caring, responsible parents, falling foul of the law. In the first case the boys accepted responsibility for their actions, made amends and, in my view, would have gone on to become law-abiding, responsible adults. In the second case, the boy goes on to become a "career" criminal, leaving a trail of destruction and is murdered in gaol.
Why the difference in outcomes? As I wrote at the beginning, I don't know. But from time to time I think about these two cases and wonder what, if anything, could have been done to change the second boy's outcome.
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