Podcast: Dave Hammond wants a youth justice system grounded in connection and restitution, not hatred and blame
Imagine you’re a kind-hearted community development worker, who believes young people are worthy, and need support, not punishment, when they do the wrong thing – and then one night, one of those kids breaks into your house.
That happened to Dave Hammond. He’s worked for many years in homelessness and community services, including previously leading Jesuit Social Services’ work in western Sydney.
A 14-year-old boy was one member of a group who broke into Dave and his wife Sal’s house a few years ago. Dave and Sal could have asked for the kid to be thrown in jail – but instead they took a closer look at what was going on in his life.
Today, Dave tells that story – and much more, about the choices and moments that make us who we are.
You can keep scrolling to read the full transcript of this conversation.
Sophie Raynor
Welcome to the Worth A Second Chance podcast, where we explore true stories, challenges and solutions from the frontlines of Australia's youth justice systems. My name is Sophie Raynor.
Picture this. You’re a community development worker with a heart of gold. You believe in kids’ worth, and you know that even when they do the wrong thing, they’re more than their actions – they’re young people who need support and accountability, not harsh punishment.
Dave Hammond
My name is Dave Hammond. I live in Mount Druitt in Western Sydney. And I've been involved in community development kind of work for about 40 years.
Sophie Raynor
And then one night, one of these kids breaks into your house.
Dave Hammond
…just a bit confused, you know, like, why is the car not there, and then it takes, you know, a few minutes to work out, right? Someone's pinched it overnight. You suddenly feel a bit unsafe, like someone was in my house and we were asleep…
Sophie Raynor
That happened to Dave Hammond. He’s worked for many years in homelessness and community services, including previously leading Jesuit Social Services’ work in western Sydney.
A 14-year-old boy was one member of a group who broke into Dave and his wife Sal’s house a few years ago. Dave and Sal could have asked for the kid to be thrown in jail… but instead they took a closer look at what was going on in his life.
Today, Dave tells me that story – and much more, about the choices and moments that make us who we are.
Dave, take me back – do you remember that night?
Dave Hammond
I do. Well, I remember the morning, when we went out to drive the car off. And, you know, it was gone. And then we noticed a few other things had gone missing as well. So, you know, my push bike and a couple of computers and that kind of thing had been taken. It's a bit of a process. So in the first instance, it just a bit confused are, you know, like, why is the car not there and, and then it takes, you know, a few minutes to work out, right? Someone's pinched it overnight.
Sophie Raynor
So, after that confusion, what were your next feelings?
Dave Hammond
It’s hard to really to describe because it's a mix of a few things, it's… you feel a bit… suddenly feel a bit unsafe, like someone was in my house, and we were asleep. I think the first feelings are shock; a feeling of being a bit unsafe. And then real disappointment. In this case, it was a bit of the car wasn't anything special. But it was precious to my partner because an uncle had gifted to her, you know, when he passed away, and so she was connected. So then there was a bit of grief involved in all that, but then you kind of takes over with all the practical things, you call the cops and they come around, and everyone's dusting for prints and you know, there's a whole kind of technical thing that happens. It's a bit of a rigmarole. So you kind of, you kind of have a whole bunch of mixed emotions, like I felt, we felt very grateful for those folks coming in and doing their best to see if they can find out who it was and maybe get your gear back. It kind of goes on for a while.
Sophie Raynor
And did you have any suspicions at the time – with your previous experiences of being broken into – did you have an idea of who it might be? Were they from your neighbourhood?
Dave Hammond
We'd moved into this particular suburb because it was such a difficult place. And we were both community workers and we thought it'd be better to get out of it, the safety of where they were and get in amongst it and get to know people personally and all that. So once people realised we were what we're doing, local people didn’t touch our place. So I had… it took a couple of days, but I figured surely there must have come from out of suburb… turned out one of the young fellas was a local person. In his mid-teens, 14, I think.
Sophie Raynor
That 14-year-old – did you know him?
Dave Hammond
Well, he lived around the corner, actually. Nice kid. And it was very difficult circumstances. So no parents, you know, he slept on the floor, that kind of thing, had a couple of little, his nieces, a couple of nieces, I think they were, and the older brother, and they were doing their best, but life was very difficult. They live, you know, three minutes’ walk from our place.
Sophie Raynor
Knowing that he lived locally – did that make the break-in better or worse?
Dave Hammond
People who are having difficult lives, they don't mean it – he didn’t pinch the car because he was a nasty kid. And that doesn't justify it. But it was in very difficult circumstances. I actually… in the end, it was good. I guess we'll get to that. But you know, we had were able to form a relationship after that.
Sophie Raynor
Mmh. It’s really sobering to think about the circumstances of that kid's life. And this is sort of the key question that I wanted to ask you – being, you know, a values-driven, community-minded person with a history of working in community development, when the rubber hits the road of like, here, your values are being challenged by the material circumstances of your life, with this break-in. Did you at any stage actually just go like, you know, no, I'm… I don't have a curiosity about what's going on in this kid's life, I'm not going to have a compassionate kind of perspective on some of the challenges that have led him to be breaking into my house with these older guys. Instead, I'm just going to be like, you know, lock him up, throw away the key.
Dave Hammond
No. I honestly know that might sound odd to some people. But I think… when you form your values, which we did over a long period of time, there's a lot of thinking and choices to be made. But once they are in, once your values are in place, one of the great things is you don’t have to think too much about it. It's kind of an automatic thing. So once that’s integrated, it's not hard to live by your values… values are really habits. That's what they are; they’re habitual ways of behaving and thinking and all that; particularly behaving. So it's not like anyone is being especially heroic or good. You're just working off those habits. They just kick in and that's what you do.
Sophie Raynor
So, I want to take you off the chronology of the story at this point, because I want to talk to you a little bit more about your and your partner's experiences. If you don't mind my asking, what's happened in your life that have led you to form those habits?
Dave Hammond
My wife and I come from different sides of the tracks. So, when I was about that kid’s age, I experienced homelessness as well. And you know, it's just a classic, standard story, you know, drugs and rah rah rah, and it was very difficult… my mum was good, but it was difficult circumstances. Not her fault but difficult circumstances growing up and you know, one thing led to another… I found myself in a fair bit of difficulty.
And my wife and I met, because I was I wandered into some drop-in centre with raisin toast and cheap coffee, you know, seagrass matting on the floor. I walked in as a street kid, so I don't know how old I was by then, but 16, 17, having been through the court system, and, you know, I was just trying to behave myself. And she was one of the volunteers there. Of course, these days, it'd be frowned on for the two of us to fall in love. But we were very careful about the way we did it; we made ourselves accountable before we, you know, began a relationship, you know, we understood that was probably a difficult thing to embark on.
And, you know, my wife's family, they're just awesome people, very successful, and that, so very different backgrounds. But she had left the safety of, you know, she used to go to youth group and all that; she lived in a safe area. But she left all that to go volunteer in this drop-in centre. I think she had before I did, a set of values: people were more important and things and safety was important, but it wasn't necessarily the most important thing.
Then I started volunteering alongside her and my values, I think with her support, I wouldn't be… I'd be nothing without her. She has a very strong core to her; Sally. Then working alongside each other, I sort of learned from her, you know, the way she responded to people, including me, didn't think less of me because of my circumstances. One thing I really remember was a moment for me where my values became very practical and integrated was… I was on unemployment benefits. $46 a fortnight, if I remember rightly, something like that. I was volunteering full time, I had no intention of going and looking for a paid job because I felt like this was where I should be. And because of that, it probably wasn't right to accept the dole, because you got to look for jobs. And so Sal and I talked for a couple of hours about that, and what the morality of it was and I decided, so went down to Centrelink and said, I'd like to stop receiving the dole. And it was a funny conversation, because they said, have you got a job, and I said, oh, well, you know, I'm volunteering. I ended up with three or four Centrelink people trying to talk me out of it. Right then was where I had to make, am I this person or not kind of choice. And I decided I was that person. And I was really happy to leave the office that day knowing that, you know, I've sort of started the new life based on… I didn't I don't think I've called them values then, but that's what they were… based on values that I thought were important. I'm not 100% on this. But I think in a crisis where you are kind of being threatened in a way, that's where another place you, you really do hammer out your values.
Sophie Raynor
Tell me more about that.
Dave Hammond
When a guy had got out of prison in come to stay in that place; he was bigger than me. And I liked him, but he was a nasty boy. And he really shirt-fronted me, he was going to punch my lights out. I was scared. But I thought: now you got to make a stand. So I stood there and I said, mate, you can't be doing that; either behave or leave. I was a bit shaky afterwards. But it was really helpful.
Another night at that drop-in centre, there was another crisis, they’d gone around the back alley; there's a big group of guys in there. One guy was about to punch the living daylights out of this kid in there. I was the only worker – a volunteer, might I add – and I thought, well, I can't let it happen. So I stood in front of this guy. And I regret saying what I said, but I meant well. I said, I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to go through me to get to him. Very bad youth work practice. But it was the best I could do at the time; I was still learning. And the guy said, fair enough, he’s gonna deck me, and I thought, oh, and then some other really rough kid, who hated me, he stood in front of me and said, and you're gonna have to go through me to get to him. And it was a real moment where, you know, anyway, I didn't know then, but in retrospect, I could see that, you know, I was imperfect. I didn't get the wording right, or, you know, all that kind of stuff. But I made an attempt to live by my values, even though my safety was in question. And that's – I can't prove it. But it seemed like it affected this other young guy, to establish a value for himself. That was profound for me. I think that's what's probably what role modelling, and you know, all that kind of stuff is about – is that people get to see you not in an office where you're safe. But you know, young folks get to see the real you under pressure, countless times. Those sorts of pressure situations happened and you know, the values were hammered out.
Sophie Raynor
So, we’re speaking about how you came to have the values that you do, and the fact that those values were honed over time until they’re instinctive, and built in pressured environments. I want to take you back to the break-in now, and to what happened after the police arrested the 14-year-old who was part of it.
Dave Hammond
I knew that there would be a possibility that we could have – it’s called a restorative justice conference. You can explain that to your listeners…
Sophie Raynor
We heard about these conferences in our last episode – it’s a dialogue between people who have offended and those impacted by their actions, and as research Rob Bonnett told us, it’s a way to reduce reoffending rates without sending kids to prison.
Dave Hammond
Basically, I knew would be possible.
And I let someone one of the cops know that and I would be open to that, you know, because we're concerned about the kid. Anyway, long story short, they came back and said, yeah, no worries. So we had this restorative justice conference. And basically you have a person who leads it, you’ve got a cop there, the young person, a support person for the kid, social workers, you know, it's probably eight or nine people in the circle for us – and Sal and I. And what you do, in very simple terms, is this person manages it, and he gives us the opportunity to call on victims… I don't really like that term. But anyway, the victims get to sort of give a bit of an impact statement, you know, this is what life is and how it affected us. And then the kid gets to… or the perpetrator gets to talk about whatever they want to say, you know, they can say, sorry, they can tell you why, or, you know, whatever. And we said what we said, and he then told us a bit about his life… actually so did the cop; he knew the kid. They helped us understand what kind of a life he had. That's where we learned that he… slept on the floor… excuse me.
To this day. I just, I feel very sad that he had to live that way, that affected us. How could you be… how could you want retribution when the kid’s already lived through it?
So anyway, it was a backwards and forwards and a round and round. And it was a, you know, it was a really, it took about an hour. And it was a really, it was a beautiful process. And in the end, I asked the person in charge, are you allowed to offer to have a hug? That was all very complicated, you've got to be careful, of course, you've got to watch your boundaries. But in the end, they said, yeah, I offered – I say to the kid, if it's okay with you, you don’t have to, but wouldn’t mind giving you a hug, and we did that, and it was lovely. And I said I forgive you mate, just don’t let this trip you up for the rest of your life. And then it closed. And I said to the person that, if it's at all possible, we’d love to invite him and his, you know, his family over for dinner. And then they came around one night, him and his brother and the two little girls, and we just went all out, you know, you can imagine, cooked beautiful food, and the kids ate and they played with… we got lots of toys and things for visitors to come. The kids. And they played and we, you know, we connected, it was beautiful. And the young person, you know, did serve out some community service hours. And, you know, all that kind of stuff is still… there was a consequence. But the consequence didn't include him being hated by us. There was no need for that.
Sophie Raynor
And what was the family like?
Dave Hammond
Look, the little girls are just wonderful. My wife is a parent educator; like she really knows her stuff. And she was watching them and watching their interactions. She's told me afterwards – they’re really well looked after, you know, they've got good communication skills. They seem to, you know, whatever's going on, one thing that certainly is going on is they're well-parented, which is… that might come as a shock for people who have never, you know, you're hearing the story of what happened, but they were lovely. So respectful, you know, the kids asked permission to start eating, the other brother they washed up and cleaned up, and they were just lovely people. But you know, the loveliest people, given a difficult set of circumstances, you know, they can do some bad things, but it's not them. Only. It's circumstances that can lead us into some behaviour that, you know, we probably all wish we didn't do.
Sophie Raynor
Mmh. That language you’re using there, about circumstances leading us and wishing things could be different. Some people I've spoken to describe it as, you know, young people are criminalised, and, targeted by a system, and they live in circumstances that lead them to become involved with the justice system. And then on the other hand, some people are like, you know, they know full well what they're doing, and they must be responsible for their actions. Reality probably has shades of both of those perspectives. So, I wanted to ask you: do you have a thought about whether young people are culpable or criminalised?
Dave Hammond
I have a lot of thoughts. I'll try not to bore you with them all. I'll just pick a couple. But first of all that thing: they know what they're doing. I really appreciate that that's what adults think. But they are profoundly wrong. I learned this as a… when I established a casework program years ago, I wrote a manual on how it should be done. And I supervised all the caseworkers, and one of the things I started noticing was: as workers would say, now listen, why did you do that? Classic parent question to their own kid. Why did you steal that money or whatever? And the pressure’s on for the kid to give you an answer, but the truth is, if you think back to your own childhood, often you don't really know. I don't know. Even as adults we can be caught with that. Just: I don't actually know why I did it. And one of the destructive things that can take place is that we can pressure them to come up with an answer so they just come up with any answer to get you off the back. And then you think you know, but you don't know, because they don't know. And that's okay. It doesn't mean they're not responsible. That doesn't mean they shouldn't feel some accountability, of course. But I don't think everyone really does know why they do the things they do. And I've spent decades learning and understanding all this. you know, I think consequences are important for human beings, you know, you touch the hot stove, and it hurts and you think, gee, I might not touch that, again, some of us might have another go. Just to be sure. But you know, that simple analogy, it kind of gives you a sense that, okay, well, I won't touch that.
The problem is that it's not that black and white, when it comes to crime. And my wife says that one of the mistakes we make in our raising our children is that sometimes that punishment doesn't have a real deep connection to the thing they did wrong, or doesn't make sense. So some, you know, your daughter might build some other kid or their brother or something, punch him in the head. And then a parent chooses to say, that was a terrible thing. And I am now going to smack your bottom because you've hit that kid. For a growing person, it doesn't make sense. You know, I shouldn't be violent. And you're being violent to me to prove that. It doesn't make sense. So there is – I personally think that we don't always have relevant… call them punishments, if you want. But we don't have relevant outcomes for crime. I think people need to experience consequences. But I think we struggle in our system, to have consequences that make sense, and help a person figure out how to change their behaviour.
Sophie Raynor
I have one more question for you, as a person who’s been affected by crime and involved with the criminal justice system. Through the conference that you had, did it give you the result you wanted?
Dave Hammond
It did.
You know, I'd love our society to ask itself, what do you want out of a criminal justice system? What do you want the end result to be? What I wanted, it was more than I could have hoped for. It was reconciliation. And if you don't mind me using the term it was redemption, in the non-religious-y kind of way of seeing it, you know, we became deeply connected. That kid would stand in front of a bus to help me, you know what I mean? Like, isn't that the outcome we want? Do we really want outcomes where people are punished in such a way as they are more damaged human beings?
So for me, I'm all for a criminal justice system. I just want one that brings about connection... I like that word, redemption, restitution. And I mean, forgive me; this sounds pretty dodgy maybe, but love, you know, so that I, when that kid and I look each other in the eyes, there are no ghosts there or hatred or blame anymore, it's all gone. And that kid has an opportunity, with a bit more support and a bit of help to become fulfilled as a human being. Isn't that what we want out of a justice system? Do we really just want revenge and just keep punching him in the head until they become unconscious? That that's it kind of feels like we want. People don't just want someone to be excluded from society, in a prison, they want them to be punished every day in the prison. To me, that is a really bad way of seeing things. People can experience consequences of their behaviour. But I would hope, I would love to see, a criminal justice system that ends up building, more trusting, more caring, more productive community.
Sophie Raynor
That was Dave Hammond speaking to Worth a Second Chance about values under pressure, and how all of us have the opportunity to give someone else a second chance.
Worth a Second Chance is a community campaign from Jesuit Social Services. We’re calling for a more fair, humane and effective youth justice system – and we need your help. Learn more, and join the campaign at worthasecondchance.com.au
Thanks to Dave Hammond for speaking with me today, and you can find new conversations every second Wednesday. My name is Sophie Raynor, and this was Worth A Second Chance.