A new community patrol group, set up by the traditional owners of Alice Springs have a message for young offenders — enough is enough.
Key points:
- Traditional owners want to take back control of their streets in Alice Springs
- Former police officer Phillip Alice will spearhead a new group aimed at curbing crime
- The National Indigenous Australians Agency has provided a $900,000 grant
Arrernte man Phillip Alice is the former long-serving police officer leading the group, under the auspice of native title body Lhere Artepe.
His aim is to stop young people “running amok” and bring down the horrific rates of crime and violence.
“We don’t want any more kids to be out on the streets,” he said.
“If they need to be on the streets, they need to be with their parents.”
The patrol group, which has been running for a week with up to 30 men and women walking around the CBD from noon through to the early hours of the morning, is the result of years of lobbying by Lhere Artepe.
Patrol group a long time coming
In the lead up to the 2022 federal election, there was bi-partisan support to get the group off the ground.
Now the The National Indigenous Australians Agency has provided a $900,000 grant over two years to make it sustainable.
Mr Alice, who served as an officer for 25 years in his home community of Santa Teresa, south-east of Alice Springs, said solutions to Indigenous problems must be borne by the traditional owners.
“I think the community itself needs to take control of the law and order,” he said.
“Aboriginal people had law and order in their hands before the police, and are used to dealing with a lot of antisocial behaviour in the community.
“Our elders are the ones who are our leaders, and we hear them and we then make decisions on how we can make a safe place.”
A night-time patrol in Alice Springs is not a new idea. Over the decades, many iterations have been stood up only to shut down months or years later due to funding issues or other complications.
Traditional owners’ ‘hands tied’
Lhere Artepe chief executive Graeme Smith believes the chaos playing out on the streets is largely caused by visitors to the community who are not associated with the Arrernte people.
After many years and failed attempts by service providers to confront troublemakers in Alice Springs, he hopes this time will be different.
“It hurts us just as much as it hurts everybody,” Mr Smith said.
“We have felt like we’ve been walking around our own town with our hands tied behind our back, with everybody else delivering programs and services, bar us — the native title holders,.
“As traditional owners, we’re the only ones who can confront visitors to this country. No one else [can] under Aboriginal customary lore and our systems.”
With dozens of Arrernte people stepping forward to apply for patroller jobs, Mr Smith is now grappling with the conundrum of employing more staff than the funding provides for.
“I want to keep the numbers up because we still have a lot of family wanting to sign up,” he said.
“It proves to me one point: that Arrernte people in this town do want to work, and the narrative around Aboriginal people not wanting to work and being the problem … is totally incorrect.
“This program has allowed us to employ locals to bring some calm and restore order to the streets, but it’s also allowed all of these families an income stream and employment.”
Plans to develop mobile app
The patrol group will work to connect youth on the streets with help and services they need to stop them getting caught up in a “revolving door” of incarceration.
Mr Smith said in the coming weeks a new manager would commence working with Lhere Artepe to provide expertise in the “referral system” and analysing data collected by patrollers.
“The idea is not to pass these kids on the street every night – we’ve got to figure out why they’re on the street,” he said.
He said a call centre would also be established to leverage the “eyes and ears of the public”, who can raise the alarm over incidents using a mobile app, allowing the call centre to dispatch a nearby vehicle.