NT Alice Springs: 2024 Curfew

[Chief]

I'm all for educating "fostering and understanding", as long as that happens to VICTIM's needs also.

Like, I dunno, maybe reducing the amount of repeat offenders in circulation at any given moment after they've been found guilty AGAIN

I don't think just jamming people in prison - like we already do - ever really works long term. You're making the problem worse in future.

 

[Chief]

For the victims too.

Yes.

 

[Borisdog]

Yes.

Sorry Chief - I hit delete when I shouldn't have on the post you quoted, rather than save. I hadn't finished editing.

But anyways, as I keep saying, keeping them in longer certainly helps the short term issue.

I'm sure we can commission a few studies and round table discussions to sort out the long term.

 

[Borisdog]

How much more money would you like to see heading to prison services nationwide then to ensure that prisoners are properly rehabilitated and critical care needs in custody can be properly met? This whole thing needs to be holistic and it feels like we're heavily policing one part of the problem while ignoring lots of others.

You're damn right on your last sentence.
Although I'd hazard a guess that you and I disagree strongly on which part of the "policing" is being ignored.

 

[Gethelred]

That the studies show lighter sentences result in less reoffending.

Data (don't click on that one unless you're okay with potentially downloading a .pdf file from the Australian institute of criminology) shows not sending people to prison results in less recidivism.

 

[ElectricG]

Data (don't click on that one unless you're okay with potentially downloading a .pdf file from the Australian institute of criminology) shows not sending people to prison results in less recidivism.

I don’t dispute those facts

 

[Gethelred]

Sorry Chief - I hit delete when I shouldn't have on the post you quoted, rather than save. I hadn't finished editing.

But anyways, as I keep saying, keeping them in longer certainly helps the short term issue.

I'm sure we can commission a few studies and round table discussions to sort out the long term.

But that's the problem: you're dealing with the consequences of harsher laws right now.

You have a problem with youth crime. Fair chance, one of their parents is currently in jail or absent. That parent might've done something worth criminalising when they were likewise a child, but had tougher measures in place than exist right now; they got shipped off to prison, got hardened, came back worse. Instead of knicking a chuppa chup, they're stealing a bottle of Johnny Red; after they got nabbed for that, they escalated because that's what happens when you send people to prison for petty shit.

So, when you say you want to put harsher sentences in place, one wonders how you reckon lighter sentences evolved elsewhere. Why is drug related crime so much less prominent - coupled with reduced burdens on the medical system, for example - in Portugal, where pretty much everything's legal? Why is drug related violence so severe in Mexico, where the entire place is dominated by the American war on drugs?

Didn't we used to have capital punishment for a whole lot of things? Wonder why we wound that back, it'd serve as the ultimate incentive not to do youth crime, but wait a tick. Wasn't society a lot more violent back then? Might be some form of correlation there. Nah, that couldn't be it.

In all seriousness, there's a reason society hasn't just run and stuck with Broken Windows policing, borisdog. When Guiliani implemented it in NY, it caused the prison population to skyrocket; we're talking multiply exponentially. And we already had data demonstrating what happens when you send people to prison (see my post above for some of it). You then get to counter this by saying, "But it cleaned up the streets!" But then you look at the data for America across the board prior to Broken Windows, and data afterward; what it shows is that the implementation of BW coincided with a downswing across the board, country wide.

The problem is poverty and broken families. You can't fix that with imprisonment.

 

[Kram]

Won’t someone please think of the burglars and carjackers

It's easy to take that approach when the crims aren't living in your neighbourhood..

 

[Kram]

You have a problem with youth crime. Fair chance, one of their parents is currently in jail or absent. That parent might've done something worth criminalising when they were likewise a child, but had tougher measures in place than exist right now; they got shipped off to prison, got hardened, came back worse. Instead of knicking a chuppa chup, they're stealing a bottle of Johnny Red; after they got nabbed for that, they escalated because that's what happens when you send people to prison for petty s**t.

Maybe it's different elsewhere but people around here seem to be able to rack up a list of offences the length of the Nullabor and still manage to avoid be sent away. In and out of the court every few months, rinse and repeat.

Dunno if jail really helps either but what happens now is obviously very little deterrent.

 

[burge13]

Maybe it's different elsewhere but people around here seem to be able to rack up a list of offences the length of the Nullabor and still manage to avoid be sent away. In and out of the court every few months, rinse and repeat.

Dunno if jail really helps either but what happens now is obviously very little deterrent.

Even if it doesn't work to rehabilitate them. Isn't the rest of society owed safety or piece of mind? Who gives a flying **** if he's rehabilitated if he's a drop kick continually making life difficult for law abiding citizens, **** him off for everyone elses benefit.

 

[Gethelred]

Even if it doesn't work to rehabilitate them. Isn't the rest of society owed safety or piece of mind? Who gives a flying * if he's rehabilitated if he's a drop kick continually making life difficult for law abiding citizens, * him off for everyone elses benefit.

Because an absent father or mother or brother or sister doesn't just affect them. It affects their parents, their grandparents. It affects the kiddies footy league the family supports/attends. It affects a school community, a friendship group. And that affect is multiplicative; the more absent people taken from a community, the more the absence of those people is felt.

In the end, being hard on crime causes criminals and the societies around them to become hard. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

 

[burge13]

Because an absent father or mother or brother or sister doesn't just affect them. It affects their parents, their grandparents. It affects the kiddies footy league the family supports/attends. It affects a school community, a friendship group. And that affect is multiplicative; the more absent people taken from a community, the more the absence of those people is felt.

In the end, being hard on crime causes criminals and the societies around them to become hard. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Oh please, won't someone think of the criminals feelings

I said repeat offender. At some point the community is owed safety above the drop kicks lifestyle. If the their parents, their grandparents, the kiddies footy league the family supports/attends, the school community, and friendship group are worried they should pull the degenerate into line.

For petty one ofs, obviously we don't need to go overboard. For repeat offenses, **** them to the moon and back. How bloody ridiculous can you get, it's honestly laughable

As Kram said, easy to have your POV when it isn't your neighbourhood

 

[evolved2]

Oh please, won't someone think of the criminals feelings

I said repeat offender. At some point the community is owed safety above the drop kicks lifestyle. If the their parents, their grandparents, the kiddies footy league the family supports/attends, the school community, and friendship group are worried they should pull the degenerate into line.

For petty one ofs, obviously we don't need to go overboard. For repeat offenses, * them to the moon and back. How bloody ridiculous can you get, it's honestly laughable

As Kram said, easy to have your POV when it isn't your neighbourhood

The criminal behaviour is rooted in generational trauma that goes right back to colonisation of Australia. Don't you think we have a responsibility there given that colonisation and government policy has caused a lot of those issues?

 

[Freo Big Fella]

'People feel safe': How Alice Springs has gone from 'hectic' to 'quiet' during the youth curfew

For many residents, the two-youth curfew in Alice Springs has transformed the Central Australian town. But with less than a week to go until the temporary restrictions end, some are concerned about a return to the violence that sparked the curfew in the first place.

www.abc.net.au

Surely locals in Alice Springs (and Broome, and Derby, and Townsville, and Kalgoorlie etc) surely deserve to feel genuinely safe in their communities?

Because that's the point that's been reached - for all advocates like to argue that the system is locking kids up left, right and centre for petty offences, I've seen Magistrates and Youth Justice workers bend over backwards to keep teenagers who've racked up 15-16 burglary offences out of detention, effectively teaching them that there are no consequences for their actions.

Cyclic offending and detention isn't ideal, but people need to recognise that it's reached the point where a lot of these juveniles are too dangerous to be allowed to remain out and about in the community,.

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Interesting article in today's Aus. Something I've been saying for a while now, but no one's listened
I can't see anything coming of it, sadly. It's a nationwide phenomenon.

https://todayspaper.theaustralian.c...a61d9b-023c-424e-b575-dd6c277fb89b&share=true

 

[Chief]

Maybe it's different elsewhere but people around here seem to be able to rack up a list of offences the length of the Nullabor and still manage to avoid be sent away. In and out of the court every few months, rinse and repeat.

And yet the proportion of Aboriginal people in prison, or who have been inside, is still very high.

 

[Borisdog]

But that's the problem: you're dealing with the consequences of harsher laws right now.

You have a problem with youth crime. Fair chance, one of their parents is currently in jail or absent. That parent might've done something worth criminalising when they were likewise a child, but had tougher measures in place than exist right now; they got shipped off to prison, got hardened, came back worse. Instead of knicking a chuppa chup, they're stealing a bottle of Johnny Red; after they got nabbed for that, they escalated because that's what happens when you send people to prison for petty s**t.

So, when you say you want to put harsher sentences in place, one wonders how you reckon lighter sentences evolved elsewhere. Why is drug related crime so much less prominent - coupled with reduced burdens on the medical system, for example - in Portugal, where pretty much everything's legal? Why is drug related violence so severe in Mexico, where the entire place is dominated by the American war on drugs?

Didn't we used to have capital punishment for a whole lot of things? Wonder why we wound that back, it'd serve as the ultimate incentive not to do youth crime, but wait a tick. Wasn't society a lot more violent back then? Might be some form of correlation there. Nah, that couldn't be it.

In all seriousness, there's a reason society hasn't just run and stuck with Broken Windows policing, borisdog. When Guiliani implemented it in NY, it caused the prison population to skyrocket; we're talking multiply exponentially. And we already had data demonstrating what happens when you send people to prison (see my post above for some of it). You then get to counter this by saying, "But it cleaned up the streets!" But then you look at the data for America across the board prior to Broken Windows, and data afterward; what it shows is that the implementation of BW coincided with a downswing across the board, country wide.

The problem is poverty and broken families. You can't fix that with imprisonment.

Nice essay.

But it's the same as everything else.

Everyone keeps telling us how to ( ? ) fix it long term. With effing ZERO success so far. But it doesn't stop 'em all trying, and fair enough. Try what you think will work long term.
Me - the fifty-seventh time I hit the end of my **** with a hammer and act surprised that it hurts again I try something different.

What needs to happen is a greater disincentive to the shit they're committing in the short term.

This thread has degenerated into the same circular shit that's happening in sections of the community now.

I'll leave you all to it - I think I've made my feelings known.

 

[burge13]

The criminal behaviour is rooted in generational trauma that goes right back to colonisation of Australia. Don't you think we have a responsibility there given that colonisation and government policy has caused a lot of those issues?

My point isn't relevant to this though

If repeat offenders keep ruining the lives and livelihoods of law abiding citizens, why the hell are the crims feelings and families prioritized. It's the courts/police/governments responsibility to ensure safety for them, not the other way around ffs

Sorry if I value the wants and needs of people following the law and doing the right thing over some drop kick, regardless of circumstances. Honestly not sure how that would ever be argued with tbh

Do we have a responsibility? No, I don't believe so any more than we do. Society has progressed immensely and continues to. I think you have a responsibility to keep up, and there are 100's of 1000's of people in bad circumstances in this day and age. Indigenous people are owed no more, and no less than anyone else struggling. To deviate from this is the very definition of racism, something society has fought against for decades.

I also think as previously posted no other group has the resources attributed to it by government agencies in health/education etc (in SA at least). How much further does the responsibility go? Everyone is owed resources after all

Frankly I (and a growing number of the population I think) are sick of hearing about 'colonization'. Unless someone invents a time machine people are going to have to move on eventually. Not forget history, not wipe it, but certainly move past it...

 

[burge13]

And yet the proportion of Aboriginal people in prison, or who have been inside, is still very high.

You don't end up in prison if you don't commit crimes. God I hate this argument lol

 

[Chief]

What needs to happen is a greater disincentive to the s**t they're committing in the short term.

If that short term disincentive leads to a bigger problem long term?

That's the hammer that many advocate we stop whacking ourselves with.

 

[Chief]

You don't end up in prison if you don't commit crimes. God I hate this argument lol

Well you keep ignoring the response.

I'm no expert at all but from what I see a policy of lock em up longer for lesser and lesser crimes doesn't work long term. Never has.

 

[Gethelred]

Oh please, won't someone think of the criminals feelings

Funnily enough, I wasn't talking about effects of criminalisation on the criminals, Burge. You need to read the posts you quote.

Because the entire next paragraph is barely relevant to the point made, snip!

For petty one ofs, obviously we don't need to go overboard. For repeat offenses, * them to the moon and back. How bloody ridiculous can you get, it's honestly laughable

You really don't seem to be amused.

As Kram said, easy to have your POV when it isn't your neighbourhood

I've not lived in Alice Springs or the NT, but I've lived in some pretty poor places. The school that I teach in has some of the lowest socioeconomic data in Vic. I had to flee a rooming house because the bloke I shared a wall with was unpredictable mentally and prone to violent outbursts. I've moved out of a rental (different house) because there were unfixed holes in the floor and ceiling, and the other tenants didn't give a shit about the rats or the mice (and there were both) living in the kitchen.

So while I've not lived there, I'm pretty content that my experience allows me to extrapolate pretty well.

The other side of it to is, you (and Borisdog) don't really know who's on the other end of the internet to you, so on what basis (beyond disagreement) can you discount the experiences/opinions of other people to the degree you do?

 

[burge13]

Well you keep ignoring the response.

I'm no expert at all but from what I see a policy of lock em up longer for lesser and lesser crimes doesn't work long term. Never has.

The more crimes you commit, the less a judge is likely to give you much leeway.

If you and I go to court for 5 grams of cocaine possession with no prior offences, we'll likely be sent to a drug rehab program once and a fine.

If someone with 10 B&E's, 5 assaults, 20 thefts goes to court for the same, do you think the courts should let them off lightly or see a pattern and perhaps punish more as a deterrent?

Most importantly, and something you just keep overlooking. The citizens who are not losers deserve to feel safe in their community. Locking someone up should be as much about that as worrying about the drop kick. Who GAF if it works rehabbing them if it keeps the rest of the suburb safe?!

 

[Gethelred]

Nice essay.

But it's the same as everything else.

Everyone keeps telling us how to ( ? ) fix it long term. With effing ZERO success so far.

Because we're not fixing it. We're not interested in lifting these communities out of poverty or engaging in appropriate levels of community engagement and rehabilitation for returning members, because it's expensive as all ****.

People don't want to pay for it. I certainly know you don't.

Me - the fifty-seventh time I hit the end of my utensil with a hammer and act surprised that it hurts again I try something different.

One can only hope you're not speaking from experience here.

What needs to happen is a greater disincentive to the s**t they're committing in the short term.

I agree with you that the current status quo is - arguably - the worst of both worlds.

You have a half arsed attempt at rehab and community reentry, not really reintegrating people properly and allowing them to reform the same connections they had before they went in, including the people who got them on the grog, the drugs, and who engaged in low level crime. Before you know it, they're doing precisely the same thing they were doing before they got done the first time, but worse.

You have a half arsed attempt at retributive justice, because the sentences aren't long enough and prison not hostile enough. If you're going to make it so that prison is a punishment, making it a semi rehabilitative model is a ****ed up way to do it.

Stuck between both achieves neither outcome, and we're in this boat due to politics pulling things one way and the data suggesting another works better.

I'll leave you all to it - I think I've made my feelings known.

You can go if you like, I'll not tag you back if you don't want it.

 

[evolved2]

My point isn't relevant to this though

If repeat offenders keep ruining the lives and livelihoods of law abiding citizens, why the hell are the crims feelings and families prioritized. It's the courts/police/governments responsibility to ensure safety for them, not the other way around ffs

Sorry if I value the wants and needs of people following the law and doing the right thing over some drop kick, regardless of circumstances. Honestly not sure how that would ever be argued with tbh

Do we have a responsibility? No, I don't believe so any more than we do. Society has progressed immensely and continues to. I think you have a responsibility to keep up, and there are 100's of 1000's of people in bad circumstances in this day and age. Indigenous people are owed no more, and no less than anyone else struggling. To deviate from this is the very definition of racism, something society has fought against for decades.

I also think as previously posted no other group has the resources attributed to it by government agencies in health/education etc (in SA at least). How much further does the responsibility go? Everyone is owed resources after all

Frankly I (and a growing number of the population I think) are sick of hearing about 'colonization'. Unless someone invents a time machine people are going to have to move on eventually. Not forget history, not wipe it, but certainly move past it...

I'd not discounting your view that we have a responsibility to victims of crime. Of course we do.

At the same time, stats show that Aboriginals have lower life expectancy, higher incarceration rates, more poverty, are more likely to be a victim of abuse, etc, compared to other people groups. Those stats are a result of systemic issues that need to be fixed if we want the best outcome for all of us.

I won't pretend to have the answers. Rehabilitation and some form of trauma therapy would form part of that, and incarcaration is probably necessary too in some instances. I also thought Dogs_R_Us brought up a good point about social media playing a role.