Ex-Rebels bikie enforcer Shannon Althouse out of jail and mentoring Alice Springs youth

Fresh out of jail after being sentenced over a ‘ferocious’ and ‘sickening’ beating, a former NT Rebels enforcer has opened up about how he plans to turn his life around.

Ex-bikie enforcer Shannon Althouse has been staying on the straight and narrow after being released on parole in January. Picture: Kevin Farmer

The last time Shannon Althouse made the news, it was for all the wrong reasons, having just meted out a “sickening” and “ferocious” revenge attack on a jailhouse snitch in 2018.

In sentencing the then 31-year-old former Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Gang sergeant-at-arms and rapidly developing career criminal at the time, Justice Jenny Blokland noted the “small glimmer of hope” for his rehabilitation.

Now, fresh out of jail for what he hopes will be the last time and determined to turn over a new leaf, the Territory born and bred former one percenter is setting about proving the doubters wrong.

After walking free just weeks ago for the first time in eight years, the 37-year-old divides his time between his labouring job and volunteering before and after work to help mentor troubled youth at the Arrernte Community Boxing Academy in Alice Springs.

“I’m working full time and then I come down here every morning at 6am and help the fellas here run the 6am morning session and that, and then I head off to work, start work, finish at 4pm, and then I’m straight back here till 6pm,” he says.

“So it’s been like that seven days a week, every day that I’ve been out.”

Althouse says it’s all about “trying to get them off the street and get them into fitness and training and doing good things”, rather than making the same poor choices he did as a kid growing up between Darwin and the Centralian capital.

“I’ve had a lot of experience in what they’re going through now, and a lot more of what they’re going to be going through if they continue on going with what they’ve been doing,” he says.

“If I can help with my experiences that I’ve been through with my life, because I pretty much went through the same thing that these kids went through and suffered what they suffered.

Former Rebels NT chapter sergeant-at-arms Shannon Althouse says prison is ‘like a big cyclone’. Picture: Kevin Farmer

“Probably not as bad as some of them, or most of them, but enough to realise that when you’re at their age, you have a choice and you have a life and you can make decisions and choices, the opportunities are endless, whether it’s sports, education, work employment, and raising their own family.”

The still physically imposing ex-bikie enforcer says he hopes his will be a cautionary tale about how not to “get trapped in a cycle like prison that can just lead you into like a big cyclone”.

“It’s just over, and over, and over again, until you’re kind of trapped, or stuck in a life where you can’t really do much about it, you know, it’s got a hold of you, but what you can do, and what I’m trying to do here, is to stop that from happening to these kids,” he says.

With his obvious street cred writ large in the prominent gang tattoos still inked across his face, a permanent reminder of a life he hopes is now behind him, Althouse says when he speaks, even the toughest street kids listen.

“Yeah they love it, it’s pretty funny, I’ve gone into Macca’s and I’ve seen them harassing a couple of the managers and stuff but as soon as they’ve looked at my face and seen my ankle monitor they’re instantly happy like ‘Look at his face tats, and they’re having a good laugh, and having a good yarn with me,” he says.

“I was thinking I could go down there and walk through the streets when they had a big crew running through and could just have a yarn to them, buy them some pizzas, whatever, sit down, have a laugh, have a yarn to them, and maybe they’ll leave that area alone.”

Originally published as Ex-Rebels bikie enforcer Shannon Althouse out of jail and mentoring Alice Springs youth