Cunningham: Proof is in the pudding for Alice Springs youth curfew
While ‘experts’ have flocked to condemn the now extended Alice Springs youth curfew as “over the top”, and “draconian”, locals on the ground are telling a different story, writes Matt Cunningham.
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It’s been a bad couple of weeks for experts and their evidence.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler had barely announced the Alice Springs youth curfew before they were out of the blocks, claiming there was no evidence it would work.
The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency - which has been riddled by infighting and incompetence for more than 12 months - called the curfew ‘dangerous’ and ‘draconian’.
What though, could be dangerous about removing very young children from wandering the streets at 2am and taking them to a safe place?
Nonetheless, ABC national breakfast TV host Michael Rowland was happy to take up the cause.
“Critics say it’s over the top,” he put to Alice Springs mayor Matt Paterson, the morning after the first night of the curfew.
“I don’t know how many of those critics have lived in Alice Springs over the last five or six years and had to deal with what we’ve lived through every single day,” Paterson responded.
Rowland continued: “There is no real evidence that these sort of curfews work, unless you’ve seen any?”
Paterson tried to hide his bemusement before answering: “What I’ll say to you is what we’ve been doing for the last little while isn’t working either.
“You’ve got to ask yourself should a 10 or 12-year-old be on the street at 3 o’clock on the morning?”
Despite the protestations from NAAJA, the NT Children’s Commissioner, Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe and a few others, most people who live in Alice Springs say the curfew has been a resounding success.
Police were interacting with up to sixty young people a night at the beginning of the curfew. By the end of the second week that number was down to 30.
The streets were quiet, crime was down, and Paterson says people were suddenly able to go out for dinner without fear of running into trouble.
On the 18 available days of real evidence, youth curfews in the NT appear to work.
Don’t, however, expect to see an academic paper any time soon discussing the benefits of youth curfews.
Nor would I hold my breath waiting for a conference keynote speech singing the praises of such a measure.
Because in too many cases today, the “evidence” in these cases has been hijacked by the ideology of the “experts” who present it.
(Anyone who followed the Senate inquiry into Middle Arm this week would have seen more of this phenomenon).
It’s instructive that the many of the groups protesting the youth curfew were the same ones presenting evidence to the 2017 Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children.
That evidence was used to deliver more than 200 recommendations, which we were told would lead to a safer Territory.
Most have since been implemented, but you would be hard-pressed to find any Territorian who thinks we are safer today than we were seven years ago.
In fact crime as tripled in the past five years.
Yet on these pages six days ago, Jesuit Social Services chief executive Julie Edwards wrote in glowing support of one of those recommendations, to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12.
“We welcomed this evidence-based decision as something that would keep more children safe, supported and connected with family, culture and community.”
I’m not convinced the evidence since the measure was introduced last August would support that argument.
Fortunately there’s a growing push back against this “evidence”-based advocacy.
In another sign that the national broadcaster is better leaving reporting of local issues to locals, ABC Alice Springs host Stewart Brash put this question to Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy on Thursday.
“I’m intrigued by NAAJA’s intervention because they talked about, oh, it’s going to criminalise more young people, but as far as I can tell, kids haven’t been arrested. Was NAAJA just talking out of turn? I mean, were they just sort of going to a trope that, you know, of course curfews are a bad thing. I mean, do you think they actually are a bit blinded by their own ideology when they make those statements?” McCarthy offered a diplomatic deflection, but I think we all know the answer to the question.
The last word on this belongs to Brash, who, having lived in Alice Springs for more than 20 years, might lay some claim to being an expert on the town’s issues. “Don’t you think there’s a lot of uninformed comment about this?” he asked McCarthy.
“And the further you are away from Alice Springs, the less informed the comment is.”
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