Crime in Alice Springs is boiling over – would possibly perchance also vigilantes fix it? | From the archive

The days are over. WhenAlice Springs is a soft touch. What we have is a growing youthpopulation who are really disengaged as being positivemembers of the community. There is youth crime in Alice Springs, but there are better ways ofaddressing it than vigilante groups. Alic Springs is a good place.It's a good place to live. Yeah, it's pretty mild town. I'm brother Neil. I've livedin Alice Springs all my life. For teenagers like Aboriginals like us,.

There's not much activitiesgoing on the weekends. That's why kids walk the streetsget in trouble now and then. Alice Springs is a town in themiddle of the desert with its extreme climate, 20% Aboriginal population andan economy reliant on tourism. This remote community has seenits fair share of trouble. When I was a teenager growing up, thereused to be a youth centre at the gap, that's where me and my little brotherboys used to go hang out, do stuff there. You like play basketball, computergames. There used to be discos.

None of those thing happen no more. In the last three years, the NT government has cut significantfunding from youth services in Alice Springs. The result; an ever increasing number oflocal kids with nothing to do. Indigenous youth are more at risk thannon-indigenous youth in this region. For sure. Kids start behind the eight ball inmany ways and all over the world, they're the kids that getinto trouble with the police.

My name's Blair McFarland. I'm themanager of Caylus Tangentyere Council, Alice Springs. There isn't an overall equity ofaccess to youth services out bush. I'm talking about generic youth programs, something where kids can goand hang out and have fun. There's an absolute lackof those in Alice Springs, so they're walking around atnight and without nighttime youth activities and they get into mischief. Our detention center, again,.

Is full of Aboriginal young people whonine times out of 10 would say they were bored. I'm not suggestingthat's an excuse, but we need to start bringing it backto early intervention prevention. My name is Antoinette Carroll. I work for Central Australian AboriginalLegal Aid and I chair the Central Australian Youth Justice Committee. We work with young people between the ageof 10 and 18 who have entered into the criminal justice system. Sadly, we're at pretty much a 99.9%representation of Aboriginal young people.

Crime analysis has been quite cyclical,so the summer months, it spikes, school holidays it spikes. Then thecooler months, it seems to drop down. I think a lot of people in the communityare really tired of some of the behavior of our young people, but I suppose what we would love to dois maybe educate them on preventative strategies and being sort of a vigilantegroup probably isn't one of them. Gary Hall is Irish-born bprn, haslived in Alice Springs for six years. He says crime in the town is notconfined to the youth population. In April, 2015,.

He initiated a community group with theaim of stemming what he described as a rise in antisocial behavior. His actions capturedheadlines around Australia. The CRC is the Concern Residents Council. It was formed in response to masspublic calls for something to be done about the antisocial behaviorin Alice Springs. At that time, it looked as if it was youths,teenagers, young adolescents. In reality, it was just about everybody. What we want to reduce is this notionthat you can do whatever you want to do in.

Alice Springs, I drove through the junctionand this area was just littered, absolutely littered in rocks andstones that come down from this area here. When I saw thatin beautiful Alice Springs, it reminded me of a street in Belfastcity at the height of The Troubles. The Troubles aren't here, but the same contempt forlaw and order is here. This is where the concerned ResidentsCouncil first met and first started their action. We stood out in thatcorner from nine o'clock.

I called people on Facebook to comejoin me and they came and it worked. There wasn't any stonesthrown around here at all, and the message went out to the peopleof Alice Springs that there was actually at last a group of people doing something. While the Concerned ResidentsCouncil has a less hands-on approach. It's Gary's other group, the paramilitary Alice SpringsVoluntary Force or AVF that has residents and police alarmed. The Concerned Residents Council and theAlice Springs Volunteer Force are two.

Separate entities. I'm a spokesman for the Alice SpringsVolunteer Force and I'm a member of the Concerned Residents Council. There's nothing the Alice SpringsVolunteer Force are not prepared to, to assist the community of this town inmaking it a safer town for everyone to live and work and to visit. Ifyou do not hit our warnings, you will suffer the consequencesand that could mean bodily injury. We don't communicate by our personalmobile phones when we're out. That's just too, it's too dangerous.

We've got to be cognizant that all ourphones are likely to being monitored. So while I'm up here with you right now,there's another guy down at the Gap. There's another guy at Smith Street. What I wanted to do tonight wasjust to ,you some of the area. The area that I cover is east sideand we started off at the garage. So did you know this fellow, come in anddo the stealing? You seen him before? What about drive-offs? Any more of those? Despite attempts by The Feed tofilm the apparent crime wave, everything seems to be inorder in Alice Springs.

But look how quiet this is noway? I mean, this isn't down to us. This is the cold. It could also be down to the police. Current crime statistics in AliceSprings point to a decrease in crime. The only increase being youth-relatedcommercial property offenses up 18% from previous years. Gary started his group in Easter 2015. NT Police refused to commenton camera about his group, but acknowledged a spike inantisocial behavior around that time.

They also said that policingshould be left to the police. It was put to some of the guys that comeout at the weekend to come out tonight, too reluctant for the cameras. You gotto understand this is a small town. I'm prepared to put my face on thecamera, put my face in the papers. Some of the others, they needa little bit more convincing. The CRC claims to have thebacking of the community, but the community alsoneeds more convincing. Personally, I think it's a bitof a joke and an overreaction. As the local pastor here, I don'tagree with what he's doing, but yeah,.

That's up to him. He's got a free will and freechoice to do what he wants to do. Bad idea. Very, very bad idea. To me,it's Australian homegrown terrorism, basically. It's not new. Some shape or form of this has beengoing on in Alice Springs probably for decades, and they'rejust part of the problem, not the solution.

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