Tasmania’s youth crime: Drill rap gang teens ‘being groomed by bikies’

While “eshays” and “chavs” are running amok on the mainland, senior Tasmania Police say they’re keeping a tight lid on underage offenders. Read the special investigation >>

While “eshays” and “chavs” are running amok on the mainland, senior Tasmania Police say they’re keeping a tight lid on underage offenders.

Divided by suburban postcodes or cultural backgrounds, school-aged thugs in defined gangs have been linked to a spike in young offender crimes in a nationwide phenomena, partly revolving around inciting drill rap, a dark hip hop style of music.

And critically it is these youth gangs Australian police have found that are being specifically targeted for recruitment by adult Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs as muscle and runners for their drug distribution and extortion enterprises.

Teenagers in underpass tunnel.Photo Nicholas Falconer / Sunshine Coast Daily

Speaking on the issue of youth gangs being on the rise in Australia, serious crime support acting Detective inspector Mathew Adams said “fortunately, Tasmania has no recognised youth crime gangs operating within our borders”.

“Youth crime in general is an issue taken seriously by Tasmania Police in collaboration with our partners from Youth Justice and Communities Tasmania,” he said.

“Tasmania Police is committed to the valuable work around building positive relationships between police and young people, and our new Youth Crime Intervention Units will be working alongside schools and colleges to help provide at-risk youth with the best possible chance of making a real difference.”

>> READ MORE: Tasmania’s bikies and the bad boys of Instagram

But it hasn’t always been the case, with youth gangs prominent more than a decade ago — and anecdotal commentary suggesting the members have “simply grown up, or are behind bars at Risdon Prison”.

A research paper published by the University of Tasmania in 2007 referenced a gang known as the Glenorchy Mafia.

“Here what was once a sports team for ‘disadvantaged kids’ that was jokingly referred to, by the young people themselves, as the Glenorchy Mafia, evolved over time into that which was being mocked – namely, a publicly identified ‘youth gang’,” the paper stated.

While the Apple Isle may not have visible gangs sporting matching sneakers and brands, colours or graffiti tags, there is still a youth crime problem across the state.

In Tasmania, there were 856 teenage offenders aged between 10 and 17 in 2019-20 representing 10 per cent of all offenders.

There were 1661 youth offenders per 100,000 persons aged between 10 and 17, compared to 1826 total adult offenders per 100,000 persons.

Half of all youth offenders in Tasmania had a main offence which included either acts intended to cause injury (22 per cent or 185 offenders), theft and related offences (14 per cent or 123 offenders) and public order offences (14 per cent or 118 offenders).

Earlier this year, the issue of youth crime was in the spotlight when Commissioner for Children and Young People Leanne McLean presented at an online forum about raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

Ms McLean said currently children as young as 10 years old can be arrested and even jailed. The age of criminal responsibility in Tasmania was as low as age 7 until 1999 when the Youth Justice Consequential Amendment Act was passed and it was raised to 10.

“While the vast majority children will never offend, evidence overwhelmingly shows us that it is our most vulnerable and disadvantaged children who come to the attention of the justice system at a young age,” she said.

“In Tasmania, the overall number of younger children in the justice system is relatively small, but children who offend at a young age are more likely to reoffend and become entrenched in the criminal justice system.

“The younger a child is when they have first contact with the justice system, the higher the chances of them reoffending.”