Katie Bice: Cops’ response to youth gangs crisis inadequate
VICTORIA police has finally acknowledged that people are “worried” about youth gangs menacing the western suburbs. Worried doesn’t begin to cut it, writes Katie Bice.
Opinion
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VICTORIA police don’t get to tell us when we’re scared. We tell them and then they have to do something about it. It’s just how it works. Which is why force command’s public response over the past two weeks to the youth gangs menacing the western suburbs has been disappointing.
Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp acknowledged people in the western suburbs were “worried” about the “anti-social behaviour” of young people taking place in the area.
“They’re worried, they’re concerned and they’re working with us,” he said on December 29.
“I urge you not to play up to the ego of these young people by calling them ‘gangs’. “There is no evidence, no intelligence to suggest that we’ve got a gang at all.”
Worried doesn’t begin to cut it.
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By this stage we had already had:
THE Tarneit community centre trashed with fearful locals avoiding the area.
A ST KILDA beach rampage where up to 60 young people brawled in public and bashed and robbed tourists.
A WERRIBEE home trashed after a wild party required riot police who had rocks and metal poles thrown at them.
A POLICE officer kicked in the head while trying to arrest a teen for shoplifting at Highpoint.
At best Mr Crisp was trying to make the point, albeit clumsily, that these teens don’t meet the police definition of what a gang is.
At worst he was trying to manage community fear and anger by telling people “there’s nothing to see here” or “it’s not as bad as the media are making it look”.
Either way it was a poor public reaction to an issue which those in the suburbs say is more entrenched than emerging.
When families won’t take their children to the park or let their teenagers ride their bikes with friends, they should have their fears legitimised.
You can’t tell people who are scared that they are overreacting or to simply not be afraid anymore.
This is not a criticism of the frontline officers dealing with these gangs. They‘re doing all they can to deal with the issue. But while policing is a lot about having feet out on the beat, it’s also about public confidence. And the type of officers who sit behind desks in headquarters would do well to use this as an example of how not to respond to community concerns.
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Four days after Mr Crisp’s press conference, police command had seemingly changed its tune, with Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton saying: “There’s a common misconception that Victoria Police does not and has not acknowledged that it is an issue — that is incorrect.
“They’re not like a Middle Eastern crime group or an outlaw motorcycle gang, but they’re behaving like street gangs. So let’s call them that because that’s what they are: they’re street gangs.
“We acknowledge that and we acknowledge there is an issue.”
Both men agreed they were doing things to tackle the problem, but Patton’s reaction should have been their stance from day one.
If the term gang is being applied incorrectly, it’s to bikie and Middle Eastern crime groups, not young thugs. They are gangs, loosely affiliated, flexible in number and members and intent on anti-social behaviour that impacts on people going about their everyday lives.
Bikies and Middle Eastern crime groups are organised criminals with a hierarchy and set structure whose behaviour, while a threat to the public, is as a general rule not committed on members of the ordinary community.
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And besides, all this quibbling over how we define them isn’t helping the people of Tarneit. It’s not getting thugs arrested or the streets handed back from the criminals to the community.
Residents want actions, not rhetoric. They want to see police cars patrolling their streets, officers moving on groups of kids hanging around and arrests.
Don’t tell people there’s “no evidence” of a gang problem. They’ve got smashed-up cars, rocks through their windows and assaults that suggest otherwise.
And if force command need a guiding principle when making public statements, it should be this: what would I be thinking if that happened in my street?
If Mr Crisp had watched the footage filmed by residents near the wild house party of dozens of riot police storming the street, and imagined it happening in his own, we may have got a more appropriate response first off.
— Katie Bice is Sunday Herald Sun deputy editor.
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