Mother offers crime gang solution: parents must keep their families strong

South Sudanese mother Aluel Kuol is urging parents and elders in her community to do more to address spiralling youth crime.

Aluel Kuol with sons, from left, Bolis Daw, 18, three-year-old Aleu Deng and Deng Daw, 23. Picture: Aaron Francis

South Sudanese mother Aluel Kuol gathers her four boys around the dinner table each night to eat and talk together as a family.

It’s not an extravagant affair, but for Ms Kuol, a community leader in Melbourne’s Sunshine West, this simple ritual keeps the lines of communication open with her children. The single mother believes this is one of the most ­important factors in keeping them out of trouble.

In the wake of a string of violent incidents over the holiday ­period, where groups of African youths trashed rental houses, ­attacked police and robbed people along the St Kilda foreshore, Ms Kuol, the secretary of the Dinka Union Community in Victoria, has joined other South Sudanese leaders in urging parents and elders in her community to do more to address spiralling youth crime. “Parents have to be connected to their boys, they have to talk to the boys,” Ms Kuol says. “What I do with my children is we have dinner together. (Parents) need to focus on the kids more than themselves.”

With the political and community pressure over the level of violent African street crime in Victoria reaching boiling point, Victoria Police yesterday admitted what had been becoming obvious for months, Melbourne has a problem with African street gangs.

Police have for a prolonged ­period insisted there were no ­African gangs in Melbourne and that recent violent attacks couldn’t be described as gang-­related activity. But Acting Victoria Police Commissioner Shane Patton yesterday acknowledged the role of African street gangs. “These young thugs — ­because that’s what they are — these young criminals are not an organised crime group,” he said.

“They’re behaving like street gangs, so let’s call them that, that’s what they are. We acknowledge that, we acknowledge there is an issue.” Home Affairs officials told The Australian they had deported an African gang member to New Zealand, and were preparing to deport another six men referred to the department by Victoria Police for crimes and involvement in ­African street gangs.

Police vowed to crack down on the youths, and arrest them in line with community expectations.

“We are in the arrest business. I don’t shy away from that and our police don’t shy away from that,” Mr Patton said. “We will target them, we will continue to lock them up and do what the community wants us to do.”

Police Minister Lisa Neville said the crimes were being committed by a small, core group of “criminal thugs” who were terrorising local residents.

On Monday Malcolm Turnbull said he was “very concerned at the growing gang violence and lawlessness in Victoria, in particular in Melbourne”, accusing the state government and Premier Daniel Andrews of failing to deal with the problem.

Victoria Police have recently been unwilling to attribute the attacks to a particular ethnic group.

After an attack on a police officer at the Highpoint Shopping Centre late last month by a gang of African youths, Superintendent Therese Fitzgerald said: “We have problems with youth crime across the state and it’s not a particular group of youths we are looking into. It’s all youths.”

Mr Neville said yesterday there was a core group of African youth involved in crime.

“We have a small but significant group of young people, African young people, some of whom are born in the Sudan and some of whom are born in Australia who are causing significant concern and harm in parts of Melbourne.”

The Australian has spoken with leaders from Melbourne’s Sudanese and South Sudanese community, who said they were struggling to unite a “fragmented” community where young people found it difficult to complete education, find a job, and connect with their parents.

Ms Kuol moved to Australia with her first three sons in 2008, and had her fourth son, Aleu Deng, in Melbourne. Her husband was involved in the conflict in Sudan and was not able to follow the family to Australia.

She says increased parental guidance, as well as more support from local services and government, is urgently needed to help troubled youths.

“Education is a big problem at the moment, also there is an insecurity with our boys and police, the relationship is worse than ever before. There is a lot of misunderstanding,” she said.

“We want our boys to enjoy the education this country has given to them and we want our boys to enjoy their life here ... But the disconnection between parents and youth, this is another problem.”

Former chair of the South ­Sudanese Community Association Ambrose Mareng, who now works in social services in western Melbourne, said there needed to be a stronger, more united community voice.

“The South Sudanese community, it’s a fragmented community and it is not coming together at the moment,’’ he said.

“It’s leaving young children without a proper lead and no support when the community is trying to provide a solution to young people. There is no support on that,” he said, adding the problem couldn’t be solved by the community alone.

Richard Deng, the spokesman for the South Sudanese Community Association said youth crime was a problem not specific to the African community.

“As a community we are working with the Victoria Police and state government to make sure those who are disengaged are supported, we believe as a community we can make a different. That’s what we have been working on for the last 12 months and there is improvement. It’s totally different to the way the media report it.”

The South Sudanese population in Victoria has grown sixfold since 2001, with large numbers of refugees who were displaced by conflict arriving in Australia between 2003 and 2006.