Chief Minister flags secret purpose-built facility for at-risk teens amid Red Centre crime ‘crisis’

The Chief Minister has flagged a potential purpose-built facility for at-risk youth following crime ‘crisis’ but says ‘we won’t be telling people what those facilities are’.

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles says youths participating in criminal activity ‘will face the consequences’. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles says the government may consider a purpose-built facility to keep at-risk youth off the streets but the exact nature of any such facility will remain a secret.

It comes after police issued a warning to Alice Springs residents to avoid the CBD due to an out of control crime spree involving multiple youths in stolen cars on Tuesday night.

In response, Police and Territory Families Minister Kate Worden announced a plan to take at risk youths found out in public at night to a “safe place” instead of driving them home only for them to end up back on the streets.

Speaking with the NT News during a visit to the Territory’s southern capital on Saturday, Ms Fyles said while “some service providers don’t want to be involved” in the plan, she was confident beds would be available in the short term.

She said while “we may need to build something into the future” she was currently “confident we can access beds … within a week or two”.

“We’ve got access to facilities, we won’t be telling people what those facilities are, it’ll be a number of them, we’ve got to make sure that boys, girls, that there’s separation,” she said.

“We’re working through with service providers, and some service providers don’t want to be involved in this, but to us, the bigger risk (is) of letting these young people to continue in this cycle, we have to do something and that’s why we’re doing it.”

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles announces upgrades to the Alice Springs Hospital on Saturday.

Ms Fyles said the plan was a bid to divert youths involved in “risky behaviour” away from a potential life of crime, even if they had not committed any offence or were below the age of criminal responsibility.

“It’s really important for people to understand that if a young person, or an adult, is participating in criminal activity, that is a crime and they will face the consequences,” she said.

“For me, a 10 or 11-year-old being out at 10 o’clock at night, that is risky behaviour, they’re not breaking the law, but it’s risky, so what we want to have is a circuit breaker at that point so that we’re not allowing these kids to then get involved in criminal behaviour.

“It’s about stopping that before it can have the chance to happen.”

Ms Fyles said currently, if police or other agencies found youths on the streets at night they would drive them to a “home that looks safe”, but “an hour or so later they find them back out”.

“That’s at the point we have the circuit-breaker and this is where we’ll use the Care and Protection of Children Act and this is the detail, legislatively, that’s being worked through, legally by the minister,” she said.

“To take them to a safe place, allow them to have a good night’s sleep, have a feed, have a shower, and then in the light of day work through what that individual’s situation is.

“Is it that they thought they were with aunty and they were actually with nanna? Those types of things — or is it that there is real issues and we need to support that family.”