Children as young as eight years old are coming together in groups to terrorise shoppers and staff at Westfield Carousel shopping centre, with some employees of stores at the centre claiming the problem has “skyrocketed” in recent months.
Shoplifting, mugging customers, exposing women in changing rooms, spitting on security guards and threatening anyone with violence if they confront them over their behaviour are just some of the incidents occurring daily at the Cannington mall.
Yong Hung Xu said more needs to be done to stop out-of-control youths running riot at Carousel Shopping Centre.Credit: Rebecca Peppiatt
It’s got shop managers and customers up in arms, one mother calling it “organised crime” after her 12-year-old son was mugged there twice in three weeks.
“The first time it happened it was Mother’s Day and I went there with my sister to buy my Mum a gift,” Jake said.
“We split up to get different things and when I was on my own six people approached me and told me to take my jacket off.”
Jake managed to get away from the group and despite being shaken up, was assured by his parents it was a one-off occurrence.
He went back three weeks later with some friends and while sat down outside a restaurant, was approached by a different group of boys who he claimed looked around 16 years old.
The children asked Jake to clear out his pockets, rifled through his wallet for cash and then tried to get into his phone to change the passcode.
Jake and his friend managed to escape with their phones and ran away. He called his parents to tell them what had happened.
Jake’s mum, Yong Hung Xu, couldn’t believe the response of the security guard when she got there and told them about the incident.
“I met my boy and as we were going down the lift, Jake recognised two of the boys.
Westfield Carousel in Cannington.Credit: Rebecca Peppiatt
“I started running after them and six or seven of them started running off and heading for the lift.
“I yelled out ‘stop them, stop them’ but I couldn’t get hold of them.”
When Hung Xu finally found a security guard, he told her there was nothing he could do.
“He said he sees this every day,” she said.
“He said, ‘these kids have spat on me, there’s nothing I can do because they’re minors. I can’t put a hand on them or I’ll lose my job.’”
An increase in antisocial behaviour
Staff throughout the centre have noticed an increase in crime committed by younger people, including shoplifting, but say there is a general trend by kids to wreak havoc throughout the mall in other ways too.
Cailan Gumina, a retail assistant at Caasi Boutique, said an employee from another store ran into her shop just last week to “hide” after she’d confronted a group of girls she had seen trying to steal.
“She just needed to hide here for a bit because a group of girls had told her they were going to come back with their massive group and mob her,” she said.
Cailan Gumina works at fashion store Caasi Boutique and has noticed an increase in crime in recent months.Credit: Rebecca Peppiatt
“She was scared. They had stolen a few things from there and she had confronted them.”
Another nearby retailer told Gumina that days earlier a group of young girls had run into their underwear shop and went through the change rooms ripping open curtains, exposing women who were trying on garments.
“My friend is the manager there and she said the girls were coming out of there crying because they felt so exposed,” she said.
Sam Chapman, the store manager at L’Occitane en Provence, said she saw 10-year-old boys being escorted out of the centre by police.
“In the last few months, the amount of crime here has skyrocketed,” she said.
“I’ve seen eight-year-olds walking around stealing stuff during school hours.
“It seems to be the younger demographic doing most of it.”
Most store employees said the average age of those committing the shoplifting and muggings were between 11 and 15 years old.
“They steal anything and everything,” Universal Store manager Shania Nicholson said.
Carousel Shopping Centre, WA’s largest mall, has experienced an increase in anti-social behaviour.Credit: Rebecca Peppiatt
“It’s mostly teenagers.”
However, a new system designed to stop petty thieves in their tracks is working, employees said.
Each shop has access to a WhatsApp group where they will post photos of repeat offenders or those that have been caught in the act.
They’ll then warn other stores of which direction the offender is heading in, so they can be on high alert.
“We have a callout system that’s a code word that all the team know,” Nicholson said.
“If we see someone who looks suspicious, maybe they beep when they come in, maybe they’ve got tons of shopping bags, maybe they’ve got two empty cooler bags and that’s a bit suss, or they’re wearing caps or even if we’ve seen them before and we know them, then we just get on top of them and don’t leave them alone.
“We just give really good customer service, ask them how they’re going and hang around.”
A WA Police spokesperson said Cannington District officers worked closely with various retail outlets to assist in enhancing their theft prevention capabilities.
“Officers conduct frequent patrols of the major shopping centres in Cannington District, and are always ready to respond swiftly to community calls,” they said.
“Additionally, overt and covert operations are conducted to further identify and charge individuals committing offences in retail outlets.”
They also said that while violent offences were not prominent at any of the shopping centres in the Cannington District, that they did not “tolerate individuals coming into these shopping precincts, with the intention of committing offences.
“These are locations within our community often visited by families, and young children,” they said.
“The safety of the community is always our priority, and we will thoroughly investigate all matters reported to police.”
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