Boy charged over stolen chocolate frog
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It is alleged the chocolate was stolen from a supermarket by the boy's friend. (ABC News)
The Aboriginal Legal Service in Western Australia has criticised police for charging a 12-year-old boy with receiving a stolen chocolate frog valued at 70 cents.
It is alleged the chocolate was stolen from a supermarket in Northam, east of Perth, by a friend before being given to him.
It is also alleged the boy received a stolen shop sign which read: Do not enter, genius at work.
ALS lawyer Peter Collins says when the boy missed a court date due to a misunderstanding, he was apprehended on a school day and held in a cell for several hours.
Mr Collins says the boy has been given police cautions in the past, but the charges are over the top.
"The fact of the matter is he's 12 and these are the most trivial charges imaginable. It can hardly be a justification for this kid to be brushed up against the courts to teach him a bit of a lesson," he said.
"What concerns me is that there's a whole range of options open to the police, diversionary options, to avoid juveniles coming before the courts.
"I would have thought Freddo Frogs and things you can buy from the $2 store are precisely the sort of activity that should be the subject of diversion rather than bringing a 12-year-old before the court.
"It's hard not to imagine that if this had have happened to a non-Aboriginal kid from an affluent Perth suburb with professional parents, that we wouldn't be in this situation.
"We're strongly of the view that Aboriginal kids in WA are chronically over-policed.
"Aboriginal kids are far less likely to get cautions from the police. They are far more likely to be arrested, and as everyone knows the detention rates of Aboriginal kids are astronomically high in this state and are the highest in the country per head of population.
"This is just another example which exemplifies our concerns of these over-policing issues, especially of juvenile kids in regional parts of WA."
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