Street kids: What cops can do

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Above: photo from our archive.

 
By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
Assistant Commissioner Narelle Beer (pictured) says if police were to locate youths as young as eight roaming the streets at night unsupervised, they “would utilise their powers pursuant to the Care and Protection of Children Act and ensure the youth is conveyed to a responsible person (under the Act) and notify Territory Families.
 
“We encourage all parents or family members to know where their children are at all times,” says Comm. Beer in response to questions from the Alice Springs News after she rejected proposals for a youth curfew discussed by the Town Council.
 
What are the police’s obligations with respect to juveniles at risk, we asked her.
 
She replied via a spokesperson: “Police have a number of options and obligations regarding at risk youth.
 
“This includes moving that child to a safe place pursuant to the Care and Protection Children Act, engagement with parents and families, referral to Territory Families via identified referral systems or direct engagement with Territory Families with options for on call and on duty staff in Alice Springs.”
 
We asked: How many charges has the police laid against parents failing to provide the necessities of life for their children?
 
Comm. Beer replied: “Charging anyone for such offences relates to serious allegations of child neglect.
 
“Youth located in public at night time would not attract such offence consideration.
 
“Police notify Territory Families as per reporting obligations under the Care and Protection of Children Act to allow Territory Families to engage with the responsible person.”
 
 
 

24 COMMENTS

  1. It should be noted not all Aboriginal people are included as they advise they have had enough of Aboriginal dysfunction and the unwanted negative effects of Aboriginal people on society.
    However, there is a lot of anger right across Australia in particular remote towns that see year after year dysfunctional Aboriginal behaviour in our society.
    We are advised by locals Alice Springs is getting worse every year to live in Alice Springs because of the Aboriginal problem such as:
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles causing Violence in our society.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles throwing rocks and injuring people.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles stealing in front of people in our shops with impunity.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles stealing vehicles with impunity.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles damaging private property with impunity.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles perpetually robbing the welfare system in a lifestyle choice.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles sitting in our shopping centre’s making shopping an unsafe and unpleasant experience.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles not attending school or could not careless if they attend or indeed know where they are.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles choosing jail as a hotel experience and crying foul falsely.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles completely over represented in our courts system treating the justice system as another way of obtaining free accommodation and welfare.
    • Aboriginal adults and juveniles playing the courts bleeding hearts magistrates with a perpetual get out of free card not afforded to the rest of society.
    • Northern Territory Government Departments used as Aboriginal activist institutions.
    The list can go on of course, however eventually the situation must change either by way of a depression which will cause tax payer funding to dry up and therefore making Aboriginal people to get a job.
    Or the realisation that government cannot fix the Aboriginal problem and society reject the intergenerational welfare disaster making Aboriginal people take responsibility for their actions.

  2. Why is it acceptable that parents are at home getting drunk and fighting and letting their kids wonder off at all hours?
    Can these parents be penalised in some way to act as an incentive to be loving parents and role models?
    Why can’t we address the cause instead of dealing with the effect over and over again?

  3. So in other words we let small issues develop into big issues before we act upon them.
    Then when we do act the problem is so big it then belongs to somebody else. That my friends is government at its finest. It is also a syndrome known as putting an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff instead a fence around the top.
    The benefit of Melky’s curfew idea is that a specific set of laws would be drafted to give the police the power to intervene before these kids create the big problems.
    A curfew could not be enacted before the laws were enacted. To those who say a curfew does not work, maybe see the difference it has made in Northbridge and Pt Augusta and other areas, remove what has not worked and build on the parts that have.
    The softly softly approach that we have tried in the past has not worked clearly, leaving us where we are today. Has it been bad in the past, yes! As bad as this? no. I remember the vibrancy of the town 15 years ago, now at night it is a ghost town.

  4. I went shopping this morning and didn’t find that Aboriginal adults and juveniles made it an unsafe and unpleasant experience.

  5. Nice to see some people can stand the shopping experience.
    My sister moved out of town with her husband and kids because she was in the shops and an Aboriginal kid peed in the corner of the store.
    She said the shop people were very quick with mop and bucket to clean up the stink and mess with disinfectant.
    She said that was quick and the nice shop people said we have it ready because it happens all the time.
    My sister went home called her husband and said we are leaving. That was 18 months ago.

  6. I would take a night in Alice CBD over a night in most Victorian country towns now. I prefer a cheeky kid over a random junky.

  7. Ralph Folds: You might like to do your shopping later when the grog kicks in and the darlings are awake.
    Watchn: You are joking? Crack heads here to. Don’t deflect and try to justify the bull dung going on in this town. Do you work for Gunner?

  8. Going back 30 odd years we ran Aranda House.
    Let me tell you it has not changed one little bit.40 to 50 kids a night, 24/7.
    Feed, shower, clean clothes, off to school in the bus.
    Drop them off once we left run away to wander the streets.
    Nothing is going to change.
    Hang on, maybe the millions spent on resurrecting alcoholics, druggies, ice freaks at CAAPU. These people are too far gone. Bit like the kids but you would have more chance working on a young brain.
    Donna Ah Chee, CEO of Aboriginal Congress, maybe you and Yoffa can turn the Memorial Club, a sight for sore eyes, into a 24 hour homeless youth centre.
    Don’t you think we have enough medical centres to deal with the unhealthy?
    Surely, spend some of the millions from the Aboriginal Benefit Association which I heard on the message sticks you are on the board of.
    Yes? No?
    A big, big conflict if yes. Be truthful.

  9. What I find so wrong in this debate is the welfare lifestyle chosen by too many Aboriginal people.
    There is no respect or dignity in Centrelink.
    I came back from holiday in Cambodia and some Aboriginal friends asked how much do Cambodians get?
    I said nothing and they said how do they get money. I said they must work or starve.
    An educated Aboriginal lady vented on the others saying they were a drain on Australia and cost $200 a day to keep them.
    I was shocked at what she said but the others just stayed quiet and looked ashamed.
    If this is to be fixed forget all the many programs government run and make Aboriginal parents educate their children and give them a chance in life.

  10. Where are the elders? Great help aren’t they.
    No culture, no respect, not only for their own people but for anyone or anything.
    Big shame, blackfellas.

  11. @ Psuedo Guru: It is not the elders who are to blame, it is the parents.
    Find out who is receiving the money from Government for these darlings.
    Take the money away from the parents and use the money to care for the child, and work with the drunken parents, or send them all back to their own dry communities to programs set up to deal with their issues.

  12. These posts from Fed Up, John, Arunta Man and Litmus suggest very much the general feeling that Aboriginal people (not all) are happy to live in poverty and disgusting living conditions and this lifestyle choice is funded by hard working Australians.
    In particular those who work to pay off their mortgage and see free housing in remote communities paid with their taxes, houses which are treated with disdain, simply the most sickening house keeping I had ever seen, or lack of it.
    If you work in the Aboriginal industry many people in the city comment to me that it is payment for blood money; that is a cycle of child rape, abuse and the many dysfunctions that occur when a group of people are kept in a cycle of abject poverty on purpose to keep fat cats and their followers employed.
    This I suppose is proven because nothing has changed in 50 years of throwing money at a black hole in space as described to me by many bureaucrats across the nation.
    The division this is causing is now getting to the tipping point.
    I was in Melbourne in an outer suburb, in walked an Aboriginal fellow who did not have the best hygiene. The young lady said we are all booked up to you can make an appointment in three days.
    We all knew that she did not feel comfortable cutting this fellows hair. He didn’t say anything and walked out.
    She called the police and we heard her say she felt unsafe because of his silence and the look he gave her.
    I do not know what happened after but I can remember the same situation happening in the late 1980s in Perth.
    So, the division is the same. Well done to all the Aboriginal activists keeping the blood money cycle happening though maintaining the Aboriginal industry cycle of evil.

  13. Let’s look at this problem another way.
    We are all Australians and a very good percentage of our population are hard working taxpaying proud Australians who take pride in themselves, their family and their possessions. All races, all religions, but Australians.
    Within our population we have dysfunctional people due to drugs and alcohol leading to mental problems.
    Our government uses taxpayers funds (there are no government funds) to give handouts to those in our community who can and should work to support themselves and the country.
    Colour is irrelevant. Trash is trash and these people should not receive benefits for more than six months out of two years.
    Funding of people who choose to live a community lifestyle hundreds of kilometres from service centres and work should not be funded or supported.
    By all means, live a traditional lifestyle but not at taxpayers’ cost.
    Most people become educated. Some raise families and live peaceably in towns and cities and enrich society through being employed and paying taxes obtaining a sense of self worth.
    It is about time we had governments that had a spine and stopped listening to activists that do not have a clue and stopped funding all dysfunctional families and communities, moving them into education and work.
    Our judges have failed the Australian people by being activists themselves.
    One country, one law for all. There are no special cases. What has happened in days past is exactly that: We are in the now and the future is out of sight.
    No one is special because of the past. You make your own life in the here and now and then you die. The world moves on. History tells us that. Stop funding dysfunction.

  14. End of year is the time for parties! I suggest to parents of all creeds, skin colour and social statute, do not to look for a baby sitter for your children if they want to go out. Let them loose in the Mall.
    Assistant Commissioner Narelle Beer and Dale Wakefield will take care of them while you have great time.

  15. Quote: “If police were to locate youths as young as eight roaming the streets at night unsupervised, they ‘would utilise their powers pursuant to the Care and Protection of Children Act and ensure the youth is conveyed to a responsible person (under the Act) and notify Territory Families.'”
    Maybe the police need to spend some time at night hanging around Coles and Yeperenye then they will see dozens of kids as young as eight they can use their powers on.
    Or is it a case of, too many kids, take too long, wait until someone rings in with a crime then we will do something.

  16. Australians sought Federation to ensure all Australians shared same legal rights with same legal responsibilities.
    Since Federation our Commonwealth government has ignored, enticed, persuaded, encouraged, or justified its own government actions or failures to act by abusively using the term “Aboriginal” claiming that was sufficient justification for the Commonwealth’s actions and inactions.
    The Commonwealth refuses to accept ALL Australians hold equal legal rights with equal legal responsibilities.
    Australian voters in the 1967 Referendum re-stated their Federation intention that ALL Australians share the same legal rights and legal responsibilities without qualification using racial identification.
    We need to extinguish ALL Australian governments’ claims that racism upon Australians is lawful.
    Racism is no justification for treating Australians, particularly children, differently.

  17. When children and teenagers are out until all hours of the early morning you know it is highly likely there are no school attendance and useless uncaring parents.
    Two major set backs right there: Their future is almost guaranteed to end up in Green Bush. Fast track to nowhere.
    Sums up the future of the NT. Time for Gunna to concentrate on full time parenting.The circus has to pack up and leave, showtime is over.
    The election can’t come fast enough for me. Maybe someone can try and save the place I love.

  18. We should go beyond cops and parents and ask: What are schools doing?
    Specifically do schools that cater for disaffected youth such as the Flexible Learning Centre and Yirara College challenge the behaviour they see in their classrooms and school yards?
    Or do they ignore it and thereby allow it to flourish?
    Any thoughts from those familiar with these institutions?

  19. Why do white Australians keep trying to make the Aborigines adopt white culture? They don’t want that, so stop it!

  20. @ DY: No, not quite. Nobody is making Aboriginal people adopt white culture.
    What is occurring is a call for those who wish to take advantage of all that a modern community has to offer, they need to comply with the rules that community has in place.
    Much like various Aboriginal nation communities had their own societal rules, those living in an Australian town also have rules that define expected behaviour.
    Break the rules, suffer the consequences.
    The answer is really simple, if you do want to live in a town and society, you abide by their rules, if not go and enjoy another area where your behaviours are accepted.
    Just trying to provide a courteous response to your incredibly racist and offensive comment.

  21. @ 2DY: I am assuming that you are attempting to stir here with such a ridiculous comment.
    Society has to have rules, like it or not.
    Don’t like the rules that much?
    Bugger off and become a hermit but don’t go around assaulting people or stealing things.

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