Shaun Carney: Gang problem won’t just go away

THE Andrews government talks tough on gangs but does little. It must accept that the problem won’t just go away, writes Shaun Carney.

THERE is a long history of youth gang activity around Collingwood’s Gasometer Hotel. In the 1940s, my Uncle Bernie was part of a small group of teenage boys who would occasionally visit a mixed business in nearby Gold St. While a couple of boys distracted the shopkeeper, another two would stuff potatoes into their pockets before the group decamped to a bit of vacant land a block away.

There, in the shadow of the gasometers that gave the hotel its name, they would build a bonfire and cook the potatoes. Shortly before he died a few years ago, Uncle Bernie, who had a tough upbringing as a foster child but went on to be a good family man and a hardworking, highly-skilled tradesman, told me those potatoes were the most delicious things he’d ever eaten. That was youth gang activity in the neighbourhood back then.

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We do things differently in 2018. In the early hours of Sunday, those same streets played host to a full-on riot involving hundreds of youths and young men and women, rampaging against each other and any bit of public or private property that took their fancy. The riot culminated in a car being driven at the crowd at high speed, leaving an 18-year-old man seriously injured. Six others also sustained injuries.

The aftermath of the incident in Collingwood on Sunday. Picture: Sarah Matray

Police and terrified locals say the rioters were of African and Pacific Islander appearance. There were fears ahead of time that something bad might happen. Requests to police command to increase the police presence in the area were reportedly rejected.

What that meant was that when things did get out of control, the few available police couldn’t have possibly done anything more than either watch proceedings or make some sort of attempt at dispersing the crowd. Police Minister Lisa Neville told ABC radio on Monday that given the numbers, dispersal is the advisable strategy, followed by close assessment of CCTV footage to identify the worst offenders. By and large, the policing takes place after the event, not while it is going on.

When things did get out of control, the few available police couldn’t have possibly done anything more.

The fight broke out about 2.45am.

There’s a numbing repetitiveness to all of this. The so-called African — most members have a South Sudanese background — gang phenomenon has been with us for several years now and publicly it follows a pattern. There’s a riot or a crime wave, Premier Daniel Andrews will condemn the behaviour as unacceptable, there’s talk about police tactics and a lack of arrests, it goes quiet for a while and then the cycle restarts.

It happened with the Moomba riot in the CBD in March 2016, which lasted for two hours. It happened with the St Kilda foreshore riot, which involved about 200 young people, last December. In the same week, about 40 partygoers laid siege to a Werribee Airbnb house, fought off police with rocks and then smashed up nearby cars and houses. These are just selected highlights and all “unacceptable”, of course.

Premier Daniel Andrews will condemn the behaviour as unacceptable, there’s talk about police tactics and a lack of arrests, it goes quiet for a while and then the cycle restarts. Picture: AAP Image/David Crosling

The truth is that the problem is now so big that it defies conventional policing. The crowds are too large for your ordinary cops, with their standard-issue uniforms and weapons, to take on. More importantly, the total lack of respect for the law and the community among so many of these young people, renders the situation ungovernable.

The police minister says a record number of arrests of gang members — let’s use that term so we understand who we’re talking about — have taken place this year for offences including carjacking and home invasions. If that is so, Sunday morning’s event suggests that the arrests are not having a deterrent effect.

More than the lawlessness and disregard for public order that these young people are showing now, the really concerning thing is how they’re going to behave in five or 10 years’ time. Will the recklessness continue or will they, like my uncle, get themselves together and move past the deprivations of their early lives, find a job and apply themselves to living a good life?

The levels of anxiety over violence and personal safety in our society are sometimes overblown but they’re not without foundation and they deserve to be addressed.

With the Andrews government, the penny is somewhere in the machine but has not fully dropped into place.

On Sunday, it announced that Protective Services Officers are now patrolling trains as well as stations. On Monday, it announced that anti-terror measures are either being upgraded or introduced at key sites in the CBD. Both are good policies.

Still, the government is yet to fully confront the gang problem. That is to its cost politically but also to the detriment of the Victorian public, including the various local African communities. It is the job of each government to demand that citizens meet their civic obligations to respect others and to respect property. If, after the melee in Collingwood, the government cannot see that, you really do wonder whether it ever will.

Rather than relying entirely on the technocratic demands of modern policing, which have so far produced mixed to unsatisfactory results, the Premier would do well to treat this as a moral issue. The easiest thing is to decide to live outside the rules, to take whatever you want, menace whoever you want, harbour grudges, act like the world owes you everything. Governments are there to ensure that there must be serious consequences for everyone who opts for that easy choice.

Shaun Carney is a Herald Sun columnist.