Cleary, Simon --- "Chroming: Child Protection Before Law Enforcement" [2003] IndigLawB 39; (2003) 5(25) Indigenous Law Bulletin 16

• Chroming: Child Protection Before Law Enforcement
• The Way Forward

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Chroming:
Child Protection Before Law Enforcement

by Simon Cleary

Huffing, niffing, chroming, volatile substance abuse. Call it what you will, over the last couple of years young people’s use of paint, solvents and glues to get high has been causing growing community concern. Families, community workers, health workers, and lawyers representing young people charged with criminal offences while chroming have felt impotent when responding to the plethora of social, health and legal issues surrounding chroming.

While most people have recognised that volatile substance abuse is a social and health issue some have called for a legislative approach which criminalises chroming. This is the wrong approach. No legislation can be a magic wand that will make chroming go away. Making paint sniffing an offence will not heal the pain that has caused so many young people to take up this activity. It will further marginalise young people whose experience of society is already that of living unwanted on the fringes.

Legislation to criminalise chroming is unnecessary. Queensland police already have an armoury of powers that they can utilise in responding to various chroming related incidents. These range from using move-on powers,[1] seizing utensils used to chrome in certain circumstances, and charging people where offences have been committed. Moreover, criminalising chroming would be counter-productive to addressing the underlying factors causing young people to inhale solvents.

It is not the criminal justice system but the child protection system that more obviously intersects with community concerns about youth chroming. The Child Protection Act 1999 (Qld) (‘the Act’) is still relatively new, and much more enlightened than its predecessor legislation. It applies to children under the age of 18. The Act identifies ‘children in need of protection’ as children who are suffering harm and who do not have a parent willing and able to protect them.[2] ‘Harm’ to a child is any detrimental effect of a significant nature on the child’s physical, psychological or emotional wellbeing. Similarly, the approach of the state in responding to chroming should be one of protection, and not criminalisation.

Inhalant abuse is a problem with long-term effects for both the young person involved and the community they live in. Chromers can experience serious ongoing physical and mental health problems, and can find themselves in trouble with the law for crimes they commit while on a high or looking for one.

While the possession or inhaling of solvents is not unlawful, it is not uncommon for young people with inhalant abuse problems to enter the criminal justice system as a result of other offences. Legal Aid Queensland (‘LAQ’) has seen these young people charged with offences like assault, trespass, breaking and entering, shoplifting, stealing, ‘public order offences’ and obstructing police. Inhalant abuse plays a significant role in this criminal activity.

Where inhalant abuse has been identified as a significant problem for a young person, Judges in Queensland’s Children Courts may order supervised drug and alcohol counselling through probation orders as a condition of bail prior to a hearing, or as part of an immediate release. Whether drug and alcohol counselling occurs depends on a number of factors, including:

• Whether inhalant abuse is identified by the court as a behavioural problem for the youth;
• The availability of appropriate specialised counselling; and
• The availability of follow-up support for the young person.

In LAQ’s experience most drug and alcohol counselling services do not have the resources to deliver inhalant abuse programs.

Since March 2001, LAQ has been conducting regular legal information workshops in regional centres around Queensland. These workshops aim to provide education for community workers about legislation and best practice programs on offer to help marginalised youth. Part of each workshop is dedicated to discussing issues of concern to workshop participants. Inhalant abuse by young people was an issue of major concern in almost every regional centre. Travelling around Queensland and talking to youth workers has left us with a clear message — Queensland communities are struggling to respond effectively to problems associated with inhalant abuse.

The Way Forward

Brisbane Youth Service (‘BYS’) developed a project (‘the project’) based on cultural skills development which involves 100 homeless young people. The project aimed to develop a better understanding of the chroming phenomenon and then help inhalant abusers.

The project comprised four sets of separate but interrelated activities, including:

• An initial consultation and research phase with homeless youth who were chroming;
• Circus training and performance;
• Workshops about graffiti art, and hip hop skills including MCing; and
• Community education and advocacy about more appropriate responses to young chromers.

In their comprehensive report, Sniffing Around the Valley: Young People, Homelessness and Chroming in Brisbane’s Inner City[3], BYS states the main lesson from the project is that:

Chroming is simply a response to the isolation and exclusion homeless people experience; an escape from reality. They sniff paint because it relieves boredom, and they don’t sniff paint when involved in meaningful and exciting developmental activities.[4]

BYS seems fully aware of the limitations of the project. They explain that ‘[o]ne short-term intervention cannot be expected to stop chroming, and cannot address a complexity of social needs’.[5] Which is why they stress that participants should be given the opportunity to continue skills development after the project.

Another report addressing youth inhalant abuse is the Queensland Commission for Children and Young People’s (‘the Commission’) report entitled Volatile Substance Misuse in Queensland (‘the report’).[6] The report aims to provide communities with practical strategies that can reduce youth inhalant abuse and the marginalisation of young inhalant abusers.

The report acknowledges that the reasons for inhalant abuse can be community and individual specific. It states that ‘blanket approaches which are not relevant to the circumstances of communities experiencing volatile substance misuse and the issues of the young people engaging in volatile substance abuse are likely to fail’.[7]

The report recommends localised community based strategies, and provides a seven stage ‘Community Engagement Strategy’ template for communities to use. It argues that local strategies are relevant to community circumstances and available local resources. The goal is to reintegrate inhalant abusers back into the community. The Commission points out that ‘it does not support strategies which further marginalise or isolate young people who may be experiencing problems in their lives’.[8]

The report encourages an ‘asset-promotion approach’ where a community works with the resources they have, such as people skills, knowledge, networks and personal experience. The theory is sound but the BYS project proves that well-targeted and effective projects need to be adequately funded. There is only so far ‘social capital’ will stretch.

The two reports discussed represent a way forward. They reinforce the lessons learned through experience by the LAQ lawyers, which is that the answer to youth inhalant abuse is not found in the criminal justice system.

Simon Cleary is the Youth Advocate for Legal Aid Queensland.

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[1] Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (QLD), ss36-41.

[2] Child Protection Act 1999 (Qld), s10

[3] Brisbane Youth Service, Sniffing Around the Valley: Young People, Homelessness and Chroming in Brisbane’s Inner City (May 2003).

[4] Ibid 3.

[5] Ibid 3.

[6] Commission for Children and Young People, Volatile Substance Misuse in Queensland (September 2002).

[7] Ibid 32.

[8] Ibid 35.