‘No-data’ exile on remote Kimberley station for TikTok teenage criminals

Teenage boys who have posted TikTok videos of themselves committing crimes will be sent to work on a remote Kimberley pastoral station with no mobile data.

Stockmen at work on Myroodah Station, which is about to become an alternative to Western Australia’s malfunctioning children’s prison. Picture: Colin Murty/The Australian

Teenage boys who have been posting TikTok videos of themselves committing burglaries and riding in stolen cars will be sent to work on a remote pastoral station with no mobile data under a plan to deal with unprecedented youth crime in the Kimberley.

West Australian Regional ­Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan told The Australian that Indigenous-owned Myroodah Station, 267km by road from the region’s most populated town of Broome, was about to become an alternative to the state’s malfunctioning children’s prison.

Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre in Perth’s southeast has become a policy nightmare for the McGowan government: understaffing has contributed to frequent, cruel and lengthy lockdowns that the president of the state’s Children’s Court, Hylton Quail, says are illegal.

Children at the centre routinely self-harm, riot and attack guards. Banksia Hill’s fully unionised workforce has made the most of the state’s chronic labour shortage with a litany of demands, including that half the children at Banksia Hill should be moved to a maximum security men’s prison.

“A lot of magistrates are reluctant to send young people down to Banksia Hill and when they do it is for a relatively short time,” Ms MacTiernan said. “We talked to Indigenous communities (in the Kimberley) with ideas for an on-country facility that would help kids get away from the chaos of their normal environment.

“Myroodah Station is remote with no easy option of getting into town, a place to reset your thinking and find alternative pathways to the trajectory into crime and disorder.”

Ms MacTiernan is convening the McGowan government’s ­response to escalating juvenile crime in the far northwest of Australia. The region’s Indigenous communities have been calling for help as they try to guide children as young as 11 away from dangerous choices, including stealing cars and ramming police.

Ms MacTiernan and Indigenous community members had agreed Myroodah was suitable for boys aged 14 to 17 who were convicted or on remand. They would feed and manage weaners on the property that has about 19,000 head of cattle.

The project would be community-run, with input from government, she said. It would be overseen by an independent board and chair mutually agreed by the Indigenous community and McGowan government.

A screenshot of a TikTok video posted by juveniles in WA's Kimberley and Pilbara regions. Rival gangs have been posting videos of their criminal exploits.

Ms MacTiernan said the programs discussed so far with Indigenous community leaders would offer “the right combination of discipline, order and ­inspiration for young people”.

For younger children involved in crime, the McGowan government is expanding an intensive family support program that ­assigns a youth worker to each troubled child. The program has operated on a small scale in a few locations since 2018.

In 50 per cent of cases, the child has had no further contact with police or courts.

In remarks that will disappoint the national campaign to exempt children aged 10 to 13 from criminal charges, Ms MacTiernan said she did not personally support the push to raise the age of criminal responsibility, which across Australia is 10. However, attorneys-general from all states and territories have been considering a report that recommends increasing the age of criminal ­responsibility to 12.

Ms MacTiernan said the Myroodah Station plan was a start to more work with Indigenous communities about what would work.

“What we have to do is to try to find a way of breaking this really escalating circle of dysfunctionality. Social media has absolutely contributed,” she said.

“In a sense, you have got young people trapped now. They are just getting sucked into a completely different culture that encourages kids to be outrageous.”