Youth crime the latest game in Melbourne for teens
TEENS are using video games to hook up with strangers and break the law — and trying to “one-up each other by committing increasingly violent acts — in a “pop-up crime” phenomenon.
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TEENS are using video games to hook up with strangers and break the law in a “pop-up crime” phenomenon.
And police say a “live now, die young” mentality is also driving youths to try to “one-up” each another by committing increasingly violent and dangerous acts.
One senior officer says some who are caught even wear their jail sentence as a badge of honour, seeing it as “part of the game”.
Teens are using the message functions in video games such as Assassin’s Creed to arrange to meet, often with strangers, and embark on crime sprees. Some games allow global chat and audio conversations.
Superintendent Paul Hollowood, from Victoria Police’s Southern Region, said it was far easier for criminals to connect in the virtual world.
Some found themselves in cars with strangers, on their way to carry out an aggravated burglary.
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“You’re online, you connect, you meet up, and then you go and do things,” Supt Hollowood said.
These increasingly ad hoc affiliations between young offenders are forcing police to rethink their approach.
“People (are) coming together who just don’t have any previous history. It’s a lot more fluid and organic now. It’s a lot different from what we’ve seen in the past,” Supt Hollowood said.
Detective Acting Senior-Sergeant Ivan Bobetic, who has been involved in recent investigations of aggravated burglaries and carjackings, said they weren’t due to a single gang or network.
“It’s not like the Sons of Anarchy where they go to a clubhouse and they go, ‘right, this weekend we’re going to do agg burgs’,’’ he said. “There are small groups — three, four, five, young offenders. The offences … are disorganised.”
Those most prominent in these networks tend to be the most violent. “That’s why, when we do capture a lot of these guys, they’re very forthcoming,’’ Supt Hollowood said.
“They’ll often plead guilty … a sentence is sort of like an acknowledgment of what they’ve done, and they carry that around,” he said.
“Most often what you’ve had with criminal groups in the past is, the first thing is always denial. A lot of these guys are quite different. They’re owning up … and they’re wearing it like a badge of honour.
“It’s very much live for today, not for tomorrow.”
Officers also told the Herald Sun some youths had tried to outdo each other by stealing newer or higher-end cars, even posting photos of the vehicles racing down freeways.
“A lot of the stuff we see posted on social media is very much about this: ‘Yeah, live now, live young, die young’,’’ Supt Hollowood said. “There seems to be a hell of a lot of that — outdoing each other, and who can do worse.
“They are the ones who are really going to worry you in terms of what they could do, because the care factor’s just not there,” he said.