Pilbara baker Laurie Miller faces a $15,000 damage bill after a man allegedly damaged two windows in his popular shop earlier this year. 

The 40-year-old was allegedly passing the small business after hours when he smashed the floor-to-ceiling windows, and has been charged with criminal damage over the incident.

But rather than harbouring anger, Mr Miller said he felt sorry for the alleged perpetrator.

He said the man police alleged was responsible was under a suspended imprisonment order at the time, keeping him out of the state’s justice facilities.

Mr Miller said the offending was a sign something was broken in the wider WA justice system.

“Are [these people] getting the help they need?” he said.

“That’s the question.”

‘Light-touch’ approach

It is a conversation happening in towns across the state as regional residents grapple with high crime rates and the state government battles to deal with a crisis within the state’s youth detention system.

Opposition leader Libby Mettam raised her concerns about the WA justice system and its operation in parliament last month.

“We see time and again violent offenders being let out from prison too early through the parole system and a light-touch approach to bail,” Ms Mettam said.

She said the juvenile crime crisis impacting WA’s northern communities was having a significant impact on local police, who were forced to keep track of offenders once they were released.

But veterans of Western Australia’s legal and policing fraternities were divided on the merits of Ms Mettam’s concerns, and whether the state’s parole system left communities vulnerable to crime.

Sentences without parole ‘poorly served’

Parole decisions in Western Australia are overseen by the Prisoner Review Board, while the supervision and assessment of freed prisoners falls to Community Corrections Officers.

Former Prisoner Review Board chair Allen Fenbury said the opposition’s criticism of parole decisions and the management of prisoners were misinformed.

“A sentence without hope is likely to be poorly served,” Mr Fenbury said.

“Put very simply, we have to have a system of parole because if there wasn’t one the prison population would be totally unmanageable.”

Mr Fenbury said he rejected the insinuation parole applications were handled lightly. 

“The board sweats over [parole applications] and are fully informed with psychologist’s reports and reports on their behaviour in prison,” he said. 

“It’s not just some unthought release.”

Police ‘frustrated’ by bail

Former WA Police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan said the management of bail by local courts and the judiciary was frustrating for frontline police officers.

“I think the biggest frustration for police, in my time as police commissioner, was the courts granting bail to people who are repeat offenders,” he said.

Mr O’Callaghan, who was in the top job for 13 years, said a view had developed over time in WA’s north that some offenders were let out too soon.

“You’ve got a person who commits 30 or 40 burglaries, goes before the court and pleads not guilty,” he said.

“Then they go out on bail and commit another 20 or 30 burglaries.”

He said residents ultimately bore the brunt of the impasse.

Small business owners at receiving end

Mr Miller said while he understood both arguments, the priority for people such as the man who allegedly damaged his business should be getting better.

“If [an offender] has massive mental health problems, then maybe they should be going into some sort of facility,” he said.

“How about we have a program to rehabilitate and get them back on track?”