A woman was randomly stabbed in the CBD. It could have been stopped

Horrified. Sickened. Appalled. Whatever descriptor you prefer, it is what we all felt when we saw the images of Lauren Darul allegedly plunging a knife into the chest of an unsuspecting Wan Lai as she was walking to work down Little Bourke Street.

These are the emotions our political leaders, Jacinta Allan and Brad Battin, were quick to affirm in statements issued shortly after the footage was broadcast on last Thursday’s TV news bulletins.

Les Twentyman Foundation chief executive Paul Bourke felt the same, instinctive reaction. “It was horrific,” he says. “I mean, put yourself in that position, where someone comes up from behind and suddenly stabs a knife in your chest.” Watching the footage captured by a CCTV camera, Bourke also saw something else.

“This is a woman who needed help and clearly, wasn’t getting the help she needs,” he says.

He is talking about Darul.

This is not the lament of a bleeding heart. It is the observation of someone who understands through their work that so much of the crime we see, the crime that damages the lives of victims and leaves others too fearful to walk the streets, is crime that might have been prevented had the right people intervened at the right time.

It is the rational, economic approach to say it would be better for governments to spend moderate sums of money trying to stop people from committing crimes rather than tipping hundreds of millions of dollars into new prisons and offering $8000 sign-on fees to anyone willing to work as a prison guard.

What led to this seemingly random attack, which put a traumatised Lai in hospital with a punctured lung? We will find out as the criminal charges against Darul are tested through the court system.

Elena Pappas is the co-founder of the Law and Advocacy Centre for Women, the organisation which represented Darul in court on Tuesday. She can’t discuss Darul’s circumstances due to client confidentiality but says that when women come before the justice system, there are normally one or more of four factors at play – a lack of secure housing, risk of family violence, poor mental health support and lack of access to treatment for alcohol and drug addiction. (Many of these factors apply to men too.)

Are we providing enough of these services in Victoria? The latest figures from Corrections Victoria show the number of women behind bars in Victoria is at a five-year high. Pappas remembers what happened the last time the bail laws were tightened in Victoria and says a familiar pattern is emerging.

If we want to make Melbourne safer, there is no mystery about how best to do it. Paul Bourke says he has met with and spoken to Allan and Battin, senior government ministers and the former police chief. They all agree on the importance and utility of early intervention programs to reduce crime. They all know it works.

Yet, this is a conversation largely missing from an increasingly shrill law and order debate.

The Les Twentyman Foundation’s signature early intervention program is its Youth Support Service, where a dedicated youth worker takes on teenagers, usually after their first arrest for a low-level offence, and helps them re-engage with school or a job. The program is run in partnership with Victoria Police and eight of every 10 young people who go through it don’t reoffend.

In Tim Pallas’s final budget as treasurer, he cut government funding for this program by 40 per cent, to realise a saving of $150,000. A year later, in Jaclyn Symes’ first budget as treasurer, she allocated an additional $727 million to fund 1000 more adult beds and 88 more youth justice beds to accommodate the surge of people on remand from the changes to bail laws.

According to the Productivity Commission, it costs $2.8 million to keep a young person behind bars for a year. This is more than the entire budget of the Les Twentyman Foundation.

Our law and order response is being led by people who know what the problem is, know what the long-term solutions are and refuse to properly fund them. More than 30 years after Tony Blair declared the need for governments to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, the Victorian government has eyes only on one side of the equation.

Within cabinet, there are ministers who want the government to adopt the “zero-tolerance” approach made famous by Rudy Giuliani – a former New York mayor who became Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and co-conspirator – and those who despair at the tone of the debate and neglect of preventative measures.

Violent criminals, carjackers and thugs who repeatedly break into homes and terrorise people should be behind bars. It is what the community expects, and government policies should ensure.

Making a city the size of Melbourne safer from crime requires more. Harriet Shing, a government minister with the ear of Allan, acknowledged as much this week. “This is about being able to address the causes of crime and the impacts of crime simultaneously,” she says.

How do we reconcile these words with the cuts to the Youth Support Service or the government’s decision to defund Parentline, a telephone counselling service that will go dead at the end of this month?

Melissa Hardham, the chief executive officer of Westjustice, a Sunshine-based, government-funded organisation that provides free legal help to people living in Melbourne’s western suburbs, likens the current policy response to baking a cake with only half the ingredients.

“In what world is spending $8000 a day locking them up better than putting money towards addressing the underlying issues and ensuring they are a constructive and productive member of society,” she asks.

It is a question the Victorian government and opposition should ponder before they respond to the next awful crime.

Chip Le Grand is state political editor.

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