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i pray for them every night and little baby out there 10 11 o'clock at night
they have their home where are they something needs to be done
trouble with stealing cars before i think i've been stolen three or four
unfortunately there have been kids as young as 10 11 committing these offences we are
seeing the community more and more afraid i get scared sometimes because some kids they
walk around with knives and stuff you're just chaining our kids up so they can't move anywhere
cctv another sensor all these lights light up at night time we've had to put in a new gate
the other one got smashed in so you can see here where they've tried to get up to here to get up
to here to get up to here to try and break in up here these have been smashed off previously
i live right next door in this house here we were having people come in under the building so as
you can see we've had to put corrugated iron all the way around the bottom of the building
my name is troy birmingham i've been here running a business since 2001.
they always seem to come in groups 10 or 12 of them run in grab the tip jar run off
you know serving customers over here making a drink come in grab a bottle over the bar bolt off
i'd say the youth crime is epidemic i would say that it's something that over the last 30 years
definitely hasn't gotten any better it's getting worse
but a lot of the the problems you seem to happen against a lot of asian tourists
a lot of elderly easy targets i don't want to come across as a racist but it really is
just a fact of life here that a lot of this crime is is committed by young indigenous kids
i get scared sometimes because some kids they walk around with knives and stuff
i'm 14 years old and i'm a maribor local i've never been in trouble with the law
um that is that's that's half of a crew that goes around marivo stealing people's stuff out of their
houses and stuff these they're like street rats i think youth crime is getting worse um because
there's been break-ins at schools um motorbike shops and stealing like motorbikes and breaking
into people's personal homes and stealing items yeah i've had my scooter stolen like
twice now it makes me very angry because i can't really do nothing about it until like i find who
did it i would tell the law that they're stealers and get them in trouble and get them curfewed
what we're doing is not working something which you know the queensland government's doing
it's been a long time coming maybe tough love is the option we need to to look at
the government has unveiled a suite of changes coming down heavy on repeat youth offenders
gps trackers will be fitted to high-risk youths who are granted bail in the cases
of serious indictable offences we are reversing the presumption of bail
it's not just a revolving door that the community probably
um thinks there is especially with a new change in legislation there's it's definitely um helped
us out a lot we are seeing an increase in these kids being reminded in custody so we're out there
24 7 targeting these young people targeting these offenders the stolen vehicles taken off from us
burglaries probably the two biggest ones that we deal with in cairns unfortunately there have been
kids as young as 10 11 committing these offences some of these young persons go on a run when they
get in the mood it just kind of snowballs into these 30 40 odd offenses and and it is
really just that small group um that we're dealing with whereas maybe the others on the peripherals
they'll do one car and that that's their criminal history all right molly what's happening
just with the police just with the police so the co-responder model it's just a way
of diverting kids from that youth justice court court process and system that they seem to get
entrenched in there are occasions where these kids have knew they're in a situation where
they might find themselves in trouble so they give us a call and whether we go pick them up or just
have that chat over the phone to get them out of that situation more than half the kids locked up
in queensland's watch houses are aboriginal or torres strait islander do you believe that
do i have to answer that
no no i rather not answer it like yeah i think yeah i might i'd rather not go into it
we patrol the streets on a weekly or at least bi-weekly basis to basically deter crime
my name's tom i'm second in command and spokesman of cannes safe nights we are
seeing the community more and more afraid and concerned about what could happen next and more
and more people are taking you know personal uh measures obviously depends on the offense
what our sort of course of action is we don't like to necessarily put ourselves
or members in harm's way if there's something about to happen that we can prevent we will
you know people who see us out on the street will disperse and they won't necessarily uh
be as active as they would otherwise have been canned safe nights is not
at all a vigilante group we're just there to manage the crime wave in our own way as
citizens just handle that vigilantes um yes we do typically people that are acting as vigilantes um
they're not indigenous people their behavior
has hurt the city by their actions we've had a few deaths in the city now
we're off to the memorial site for the four children that we lost and four teenagers have been
killed and one injured in a single vehicle crash in north queensland emergency crews were called
to the scene in townsville before dawn one male teenager has been taken to townsville university
hospital with minor injuries and is believed to be in a stable condition the car was reportedly
stolen behind me here over my right shoulder is is um the area where the the car hit the pole
recordings from the children themselves inside the car said that they were being chased
but not specifically saying that was either police or vigilantes but they were saying they were being
chased there's two of them that were my nieces and a relative of this fellow here too the young fella
so who passed away they were connected to a lot of people through through their family relationships
honestly this is the first time i've been to this site since the loss of my young relative um due to
the loss that i've suffered in my life it's very hard to be here um brings up a lot of feelings
you can't just get out here and look to knock kids heads off if you really love
the community you would be you would be in it and doing something about it putting the
kids behind bars is just a band-aid fix the kids come out and their life's still the same
all he is come here
what were you doing down there oh no we've just gotten like crosstalk
you're not allowed to go in the yard who's them there
well usually i sit and talk to them or give them a dressing there but always sit and talk to them
you know what i'm looking for two scooters who's got them i don't know what about you
how much your curfew hours yeah well it's past seven now i'll be round after you better be home
yeah i'll be able uh i go on the streets because i really care about these kids okay [Music]
my name's rhonda durley and i do night patrol in marieba
i don't see vigilante as a threat i don't see the police as a threat it's the youth themselves
the kids come on the street at night because they're not safe at home the kids are safer out
in the streets they'll stay up in the streets till about five about five in the morning
and then they'll prepare themselves for school or don't go to school either way
someone has to love them no matter you know they get up to mist if somebody has to love them back
uh we're taking you out to where the campsite is out on country just outside of marieba where you
fellas going we target the kids that are on the streets broken homes traumatized
putting kids in cells is not good for them when they come out they'll wait for a while and just
do crime again so what sort of things have you done uh like breaking into a metal workshop
and spray painting i had a caution for that but if i did it again i'll be on curfew
i'm 13 years old i don't know why i do it i guess you get all happy up when you're
doing it but then when you get in trouble then you just
think about yourself what's gonna happen about your life there's no good for you i hope bringing
them out here will steer them away from crime in town getting them out here to teach them respect
respect if we can introduce respect to the land maybe they'll respect their elders
yeah there's all different things teaching them how to find food in the bush
and then sometimes we'll sit down and have a group session at night and just talk about
the day and then talk about their lives as well now we'll start cooking up again
it's not the answer to everything but it's getting our kids back out with elders and that's what i
mean reconnecting with the land you know they took away our rights to discipline they took away our
rights to go out hunting so once you take away all of our rights what do they expect us to do
so you can't put it back on the parents you've got to put it back to these laws that have been made
you're just chaining our kids up so they can't move anywhere
thing that i want to see changes people not doing crime swearing at people smashing windows
and how do you think we can stop that do something like this
go places where they don't have to get in trouble good camping do something don't judge them just
because you think they're naughty there's a reason behind that and something something's
happened in their life or something is still happening in their life because nobody's born bad