Alice Springs: Youth crime, young offenders, tiny menaces, a spike in crime rates and helpless police with no solution
It’s 8pm in Alice Springs and a group of children are about to steal a car and lead police on a dangerous chase. After being caught they are immediately returned to a ‘responsible adult’, only to continue to reoffend.
It’s 8pm and the dust is settling across the ranges of Alice Springs when inside the town’s industrial area a group of kids arrive at the Pickles Auctions car yard.
They’re about to steal a car and lead police on a dangerous chase – an all-too-familiar scene here, where children as young as 10 are caught behind the wheel and immediately returned to a “responsible adult” – only to continue to reoffend.
Dozens of cars in the yard are protected by a 2m-high fence topped with razor wire, but the kids have their eyes on one in particular. It’s a Toyota Rav 4 they’ve stolen once before.
The first time ended badly – the car smashed up and ultimately hauled into the car yard, where it was written off by the insurance company.
But the car is drivable – and the kids still have the keys.
Jumping the razor wire fence, they climb into the SUV and drive it headlong into the heavy metal gate. It takes seven attempts to get through.
Soon the car is heading towards the centre of town.
It’s a pattern the residents of Alice Springs are well and truly used to. On one night last December, eight vehicles were being driven around town by out of control children and teenagers.
It’s just over 12 months since this city became the focus of national attention over out-of-control crime, but on the ground, locals say it’s never been worse.
In the early hours of Wednesday last week, there are four boys in the car: one aged 13, two aged 11, and the youngest just 10.
The boys are yelling and screaming from the vehicle, as they speed through town.
The driver can barely see over the steering wheel, the car mounting roundabouts, careening through red lights and on the wrong side of the road as the passengers hang out the windows.
Helpless police sit in their cars and watch as the kids perform donuts on the council lawns.
“You’re going to kill someone, stop,” one officer yells from his car as he flashes his torch at them.
Eventually police try to contain the vehicle with spike strips, but report that nearby youths on foot are tipping off the occupants about the spiking locations.
The vehicle is so badly damaged it struggles to reach its maximum speed, but on other occasions, cars have been clocked at more than 100km/h in some parts of town.
Just before 11pm, the boys abandon the vehicle outside K-Mart.
“With precision and skill, police located and apprehended four youths, aged between 10 and 13,” police say in a statement the following day.
The two 11-year-olds and the 10-year-old are conveyed to their homes and “handed over to a responsible adult”.
The 13-year-old, who was charged with theft, driving a motor vehicle without consent and damage to property, appears before a court the following afternoon. It’s his first time before the court. He sits there, apparently bored, running his hands through his hair. He does his best to avoid eye contact with anyone in the room as a police officer stands beside him.
In applying for bail, the court hears there have been three domestic disturbances at his proposed bail address within the last month.
His family and another family are also having a dispute.
The following day, he withdraws his bail application. He’d rather stay in jail than live at an alternative bail address in a remote community far removed from Alice Springs.
On average, there were 39 vehicles stolen every month in Alice Springs last year. Many of these vehicles ended up abandoned in the desert after they had been taken for a joyride or used in a ram-raid – often at a liquor store.
NT government need to do more to protect Aboriginal children: Jacinta Price
Northern Territory Country Liberal Party senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says entire communities are being left to suffer and Aboriginal children are “fast-tracked into a life of crime and incarceration”.
“This is what happens when children are left neglected, in dysfunction, without the care and supervision they deserve,” Senator Price says.
“This is the result of division, of a new apartheid driven by Labor and their progressive Green allies so they force their agenda onto guilt-ridden Australians.
“If you really want to close the gap, we need less grandstanding in Canberra, and more action on the ground.
“To get real solutions, we need to hold people responsible and enforce consequences.”
A month ago a child care centre was placed into lockdown due to “unsettled protests and riots” in the CBD, with some people armed with weapons.
One late-night CBD proprietor – who asked for his name to be withheld for fear of reprisal – says the situation on the street is “getting worse day by day”.
“They want to kill people, there are public beatings and fights almost every night,” the business owner says.
“They need to do something, the government, otherwise everyone will be leaving here.
“It’s worse than last year, it’s getting worse day by day, they have to do something for the kids.
“This year I lost a lot of friends (who moved away), even my family is worried, they say ‘what am I doing here?’,” the person says.
Aboriginal youth with a lack of respect for police
In April last year, this journalist befriended a group of youths in the early hours of the morning on the streets of Alice Springs.
Soon after, the topic of conversation turned to stolen cars.
They surrounded my car, and joked about stealing it and taking it for a joyride. They took a great interest in my cameras, too, while keeping a watchful eye out for police.
“I don’t give a f..k, I can do anything before I become a man,” one very young boy said.
“Mister, mister, look here, can you see it?” another asked, as he showed me footage from inside a stolen car. “That’s me at the front, brother.”
“F..k the police, FTP, motherf..ker,” another said as they started playing American rap music.
They continued to gloat about breaking into homes and businesses, using tools such as screwdrivers and angle grinders, and claiming they’ve been to “juvie” for months at a time,
They started begging for a lift, pleading that it was cold. “We’ll go try steal a car,” one said.
When we parted company it was 4am – and their search for trouble seemed as if it still had a long way to go.
