Business identity Angelique Glasson says Alice Springs crime crisis is terrifying women

A leading business identity reveals how women in Alice Springs are fearing for their safety as some males - and young boys - show worsening ‘sexualised behaviour’ in the town.

Alice Springs Mortgage Broker Angelique Glasson from Territory Loans with the boarded up window of her office. Picture: Mark Brake

With an office on the corner of Hartley St and Gregory Tce in the Alice Springs CBD, Angelique Glasson has a front row seat to the town’s continuing floor show of violent crime.

But one of Ms Glasson’s windows onto the chaos that fills the nights and days outside has been boarded up since before Christmas after the glass was smashed by rowdy kids, and no glazier has been available to replace it.

“Can’t get the glass and also so busy that they don’t have time to come back and do it,” the Alice Springs Mortgage broker said.

“There’s girls that work here that are petrified, and they’re kids that they’re petrified of.”

While the issues that drive young children to turn to petty crime are complex, Ms Glasson has a few theories about where it originates.

Among them is the fatal shooting of an Aboriginal teenager by a white police officer three years ago and the subsequent revelations of open racism within the force.

“I reckon since what happened at Yuendumu, that’s been a catalyst, for the kids especially,” she said.

“They don’t believe they have to listen to anything the police say to them, you can drive around and see that ‘FTP’ is their favourite thing to scrawl on things.”

A clue to another concerning potential influence plays out in what Ms Glasson says is increased “sexualised behaviour of the boys that I’ve witnessed get worse over the last 12 months”.

She says the youths in question often “target women”, circling them and grabbing at their bodies.

“And they’re only kids,” she said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Alice Springs this week.

All up, it leaves the mortgage broker asking herself the same question many other locals are asking after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit this week ended with a tough new crackdown on grog.

“I haven’t heard anything that they’re going to do for the kids,” she said.

“Over the 25 years that I’ve been here, so much money has been poured into programs that obviously aren’t working because we have more kids on the street.

“It’s not safe for the kids, you see little tiny ones out, five-year-olds, how can we say that they can be left out on the street at night?

“There has to be somewhere we can take them, I’m not saying ‘lock them up’, but there needs to be somewhere to put them that they’re looked after.

“I don’t know where all the money goes because how can we spend all this money over all these years and nothing has got better.”

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