According to local senior police officers, family dysfunction is the most prevalent cause of rising crime rates in Central Australia. Domestic violence assaults increased by 60% and property crime also by 60% in Alice Springs from August 2020 to August 2021, despite Strikeforce Viper, a specialist team of nineteen officers targeting property crime. Motor vehicle theft rose by 22 per cent. Youths damage at least one stolen vehicle a day, joyriding. On some nights, more than 30 cars are stolen. On some nights,there are 23 home invasions.
According to the Northern Territory Safe Streets Audit prepared by the Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University and the Australian Institute of Criminology in 2010, crimes where the offender is Aboriginal, and the victim is non-Aboriginal, are over-reported.
Superintendent Deutrom said in an ABC Alice Springs interview on 20 October 2021: “The reality [for] these children [is that] they're lucky if they have their own bed, they wouldn't have their own bedroom. The fridges, if they exist in their households, are not filled with food. The reality is that our prisons are full. Our youth detention centres are full. Our health system is clogged up with alcohol-related and harm issues. Our public housing system is jammed up. There's a great need for accommodation, and police are responsible and have the purview to maintain law and order.”
Witnessing this situation
and being a victim of it traumatises the community. The outcries can be read on the Facebook page Action for Alice 2020. Outcries for change were getting stronger toward the end of 2022.
Crime is one subject about which everyone has an opinion and on which anyone can claim to be an expert, but hardly anyone takes the time to ponder what is going on here. Hence, the problem is seldom thought through from its very roots.
This was clearly demonstrated again in May 2022, when Alice Springs Town Council attempted to declare the crime crisis an emergency at a special meeting and esolved to call on the Northern Territory government for help, only to discover that a council cannot declare a State of Emergency.
On the same day, the Property Council of Australia released a report to present to the Northern Territory government, seeking a response to worsening youth crime and unacceptable levels of anti-social behaviour in Alice Springs.
In August 2022, Mayor Matt Paterson, on Australia Overnight, again called for help from Teritory and Federal governments. Paterson talked about the need to turn back
the end of the ban on alcohol in remote communities and to reinstall the cashless debit card. The Property Council conducted a survey in September 2022 as to why people are leaving the Northern Territory. The results show that crime and antisocial behaviour is the main reason. This severely affects businesses’ ability to recruit workers.
What one does not hear mentioned very often is that this is a problem of history128 and its resulting disadvantage. The Department of Families, Housing and
Communities announced a plan to reform youth detention in September 2022 and called it 'visionary'. It is based partly on the Diagrama model in Spain, which is indeed a visionary model. If appropriately implemented, it could transform the youth detention system from one of the most backward in the world to one of the most innovative.
However, the Department has many good policies; the problem is that they are highly under-resourced. The 55-page plan is unclear on how police and courts will be
engaged in the model and how the current shortage of staff problems will be approached. Its text includes proposals such as: “Rostering staff with appropriate experience and training to support different cohorts and needs of young people at any given time. Providing overlaps of staff rostering to allow ample time for case management, debriefs on critical incidents, and handovers.” This seems to describe standard minimum requirements rather than being 'visionary'. Likewise, the plan does not show how many staff would be considered a full complement, which is best practice in other institutional settings such
as hospitals and childcare centres. Moreover, the plan speaks of assessment teams of psychologists, occupational therapists, speech pathology, neuropsychiatry and
education, these assessment teams to include members of the family. However, the NT is currently grappling with a skills shortage across all these fields, and the plan does not specify how it will address this problem. Neither are time frames for implementation and evaluation frameworks provided.
The detention centre will, against the recommendation of the 2016 Royal Commission, be
built next to the Holtze Adult Correctional Facility.
Tourism Central Australia moved a motion in September 2022 urging the government to take immediate action to enforce law and order. They said crime is reaching “crisis levels, and tourists are opting to drive through Alice Springs instead of staying overnight because they fear for their safety.”
The same week, NT Police Southern Division Commander Craig Laidler said the statistics were worrying. "Particularly when I know the amount of work police are doing taking people into custody — and we are not seeing it as a deterrent," he said. “We are seeing many
new, often young, faces among offenders.
In September 2022, deputy mayor Eli Melky said it was time residents took matters into their own hands. ‘People have suggested we find our own security for the town, including a dog squad,’ he said. ‘I think there is legitimacy in saying that we cannot always rely on
government.’ Was Melky suggesting vigilante action?
On 28 September 2022, Chief minister Fyles said crime in Alice Springs was ‘appalling’ and ‘unacceptable’ and that the government is open to new ideas and initiatives
to tackle crime.
In October 2022, the Don Dale correctional centre was highlighted by the United Nations Committee Against Torture. Change The Record, the Human Rights Law Centre, and National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Legal Service made a joint submission to the Committee Against Torture. In October 2022, Mayor Paterson called for a dog squad trial in Alice Springs led by private security, despite strong objections from Police Minister and Lhere Artepe CEO Graeme Smith. They believe the approach will only shift crime elsewhere in town.
In the same week, spit hoods (like used on Dylan Voller in the viral photo) on children in custody were banned, but new, ‘more modern’ ones were introduced. Details of the new models were given.
In November 2022, the Northern Territory government announced reforms to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years old and overhaul its controversial mandatory sentencing policy for adults. The change falls short of the
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child's recommendation of a minimum age of 14. In a statement, Attorney-General Paech said that putting 10 and 11-year-olds in contact with the justice system did not deter further reoffending. He did not address the
fact that this is also the case for older children and young adults. Nor did he address the fact that the children on our streets are highly transient. He spoke of programs for the
very young and their parents. He received many an eyeroll on Action for Alice 2020, because programs by siloed NGOs and government agencies do not reach the most
disadvantaged. A poll by the NT News showed that 76 per cent of respondents are against raising the age, 17 per cent are in favour, and 7 per cent think the age should be
higher than 12.
In October of that year, business owners called for a curfew. 91 per cent of Alice Springs agreed with that idea in a poll in the NT News.135 The question remains: who will police a curfew, and how? Curfew experiments worldwide have shown that they merely move the problem to other locations. The problem in Alice Springs is that people want to ‘try’ solutions. Trying is not good enough. The problem needs to be deeply analysed and solutions should be evidence-based, not based on the emotions of the moment.
On the 25th of that month, Melky tried to pass a motion in a council meeting to accept private funding for street patrols with dogs. Concerned members of the community forced Melky to withdraw the motion.
Image CETC.
Comments