Number of young detained crims up significantly since youth crime crackdown
A TERRITORY Minister has revealed new figures into the youth crime crackdown in Darwin’s northern suburbs, but said the reality is “incredibly sad”.
Northern Territory
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- CLP calls for special parliament sittings to address youth crime
- NT Police Association calls for urgent action on youth crime laws
A CRACKDOWN on alleged young crims in some of Darwin’s suburbs has seen more juveniles thrown into detention, which an NT government Minister has described as “incredibly sad”.
NT Police has beefed up resources over the past few weeks in Casuarina, Karama and Alice Springs to deal with increasing rates of crime.
Measures included extra patrols and police horses being deployed to hot spots, including within Casuarina Shopping Centre.
On Wednesday, Territory families Minister Kate Worden revealed officers had made more arrests.
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“As of today, I believe there’s 43 young people in remand (and detention) in the Northern Territory,” Ms Worden said.
“Probably at the beginning of the month we were probably in the low 30s,” she said.
“At the moment I know there are some very targeted police operations underway that are really looking at the hot spots all the way through all of our communities right the way across the Northern Territory.
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Ms Worden said while the arrests showed the government was putting community first, it was also allowing first-time criminals to mix with repeat offenders.
“Where police have made this decision or the courts have made a decision to put young people into detention or on remand, that’s obviously the right decision,” she said.
“I think it’s incredibly sad when we’re putting young people into a detention system.”
Ms Worden said the Gunner government would take its time to come up with “really good policy” on youth bail, once again rejecting a push by the CLP for an emergency meeting of parliament.
Criminal Lawers Association of the NT president Marty Aust said the statistics were troubling and called for proposed changes to bail laws to be abandoned.
“If we, as a modern society, are measuring the success of our criminal justice system based on increases in the number of children we lock up, then both our society and our system has failed,” Mr Aust said.
“The data shows that changes in bail laws or further reforms to the Youth Justice Act are not required,” he said.
“Police and the Courts already have broad powers to deal with crime and detain young people.”
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