We're having another bout of "why won't governments stop incarcerating aborigines at such a high rate" commentary, because the high incarceration rate explains the high deaths in custody rate. A lot of it is coming from aboriginal activists and academics.
I will find this more than mere useless handwringing when said academics - and all journalists sympathetic to the problem - come up with the very specific plans to deal with stuff like this without incarceration being the ultimate step:
The former manager of the community store at Kaltjiti in northern South Australia, says law and order has broken down, and the community is out of control.
Kaltjiti is in the Pitjantjatjara Lands, about 137 kilometres from Marla on the Stuart Highway.
About 200 people live there.
Allan Tremayne says he and his wife have lived and worked in other Aboriginal communities, but have never seen anything like the hostility they encountered in Kaltjiti.
He says they left before Christmas, following three months of physical and verbal abuse from customers, and after witnessing countless acts of violence.
"There is no respect for Australian law that we all have to live by," he said.
"What is even worse is there does not appear to be any respect for traditional law.
"Sometimes traditional law is far more effective than the white man's law.
"But there is no respect for either.
"The place is totally out of control as far as I am concerned."
A retired remote area doctor who worked with murdered outback nurse Gayle Woodford has told a coronial inquest that Fregon was the most violent community she had ever worked in.
Mrs Woodford's body was found in a shallow grave near Fregon in South Australia's remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in March 2016 Key points:
- A coronial inquest began on Monday into the murder of nurse Gayle Woodford in 2016
- Former GP Glynis Johns told the inquest Fregon was the most violent place she had worked
- She suggested the community should be closed
Extra police officers have been flown into a remote Indigenous community in Far North Queensland after the fatal stabbing of a 37-year-old man on New Year's Day and a riot overnight, with police saying the situation remains volatile.
More than 250 residents at Aurukun in Cape York took to the streets in the early hours of this morning, armed with star pickets, metal bars and spear guns.
Six homes were burnt to the ground and a further two are now uninhabitable.
The town's police station and government buildings were put in lockdown as an angry mob went from house to house "seeking retribution" after the man was stabbed in the stomach on New Year's Day.
So, not only was remote community housing destroyed, but hundreds fled the town out of fear of further clan violence, no doubt causing over-crowding in some other aboriginal person's house.
It is that widely held view — that youth crime is getting out of control — that in part explains Townsville's active vigilante community.
But Brett Geiszler said such people are misguided.
The youth in question are mainly, it would seem, aboriginal. And stealing cars and causing (sometimes fatal) car accidents in them is what has brought it to national attention.
Also in 2021: Alice Springs appears to have the same problem:
Mario Nishikewa, the security guard, has lived in the town for the past decade and said he has watched the community deteriorate.
Police are forced to use capsicum spray and taser the man with the shovel, who they eventually corner in a carpark, where he surrenders.
Mr Nishikewa said the people who were just arrested will likely be released.
"The same day - the same day. The sad thing is you can have somebody that assaulted you, come out the next day and smile at you," he said.
And, again, just recently in 2021:
In some of the Northern Territory's biggest remote communities Aboriginal organisations say youth crime is now so out of control that they can no longer deliver essential services.
They had hoped after the Northern Territory's Royal Commission into Youth Justice they'd get more support to help break their young people out of a cycle of offending.
There are no specific plans Steve. There is lots of complaining and demanding more money. That's about it. The youth problem is the result of a parenting problem. They will never admit that, they will never admit that just perhaps there is something wrong with the way they manage their communities. Instead it will be the nation's fault. Which is strange because in 99.9% of the nation people can safely walk the streets, there is no gang violence, and even burglary and personal violence are at very low levels. One might be inclined to think that given the rest of the nation is at peace that the problems of remote communities says some very specific about remote communities.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we have to acknowledge that there is no solution. This is one of those times. Better to close those communities because the situation is now so dire that obviously the structure of remote communities lies at the root of the problem.