Podcast: Pat Ansell Dodds tells the “bigger picture” of youth crime in Northern Australia
The recent fatal beating of a young Aboriginal boy in Perth has shone a light on a range of issues impacting Aboriginal youth in the community.
Sadly, it’s something that happens everywhere, including on the streets of Mparntwe, or Alice Springs, where we’re calling into today.
Northern Australia is no stranger to headlines about youth crime rates.
The Northern Territory has the highest rate of youth imprisonment in the country. It locks up kids at a rate of about five times the national average, and over the last year we have data for, the number of kids in detention rose by seventy-eight per cent in twelve months. But kids in the Territory aren’t acting out five times more frequently than kids elsewhere.
Today, we speak with Arrernte and Amjatere elder Pat Ansell Dodds about the bigger picture of youth crime in the Northern Territory – and the role country, culture and respect play in keeping kids out of trouble.
And you can keep scrolling to read the full transcript of this conversation.
Sophie Raynor
Welcome to the Worth A Second Chance podcast, where we explore true stories, challenges and solutions from the frontlines of Australia's youth justice systems. My name is Sophie Raynor.
Now, the recent fatal beating of a young Aboriginal boy in Perth has shone a light on a range of issues impacting Aboriginal youth in the community.
Sadly, it’s something that happens everywhere, including on the streets of Mparntwe, or Alice Springs, where we’re calling into today.
Northern Australia is no stranger to headlines about youth crime rates.
The Northern Territory has the highest rate of youth imprisonment in the country. It locks up kids at a rate of about five times the national average, and over the last year we have data for, the number of kids in detention rose by seventy-eight per cent in twelve months. But kids in the Territory aren’t acting out five times more frequently than kids elsewhere.
Pat Ansell Dodds
There’s a bigger picture than what the kids are doing and why they’re doing it.
Sophie Raynor
Today, we’re calling into Alice to learn more about that bigger picture. I’ve rung my colleague Sally Gray, who’s a convener on Jesuit Social Services’ Youth Justice Group Conferencing program. She’s sitting with Arrernte elder Pat Ansell Dodds…
Pat Ansell Dodds
My name is Patricia Perrurle Ansell Dodds. I am Arrernte lady from here, and also Amjatere, from north of Alice Springs.
Sophie Raynor
Around a third of the Aboriginal population in the Territory live in remote kinship communities known as outstations, or homelands. They were established in the 70s and 80s. These communities used to receive funding from the federal government, for infrastructure and work opportunities, almost like our suburbs do. But the Howard government’s intervention axed nearly eight thousand remote jobs and shifted responsibility for funding outstations away from the federal government, and to states and territories. That change has seen a lot of Aboriginal families in the Territory relocate away from their country and to larger centres, like Alice Springs and Katherine, when their hometowns have lost water or power or work. And, as Pat says, it’s one reason why kids in her town are behaving badly, and getting in trouble with the law.
Pat Ansell Dodds
When you close down 73 communities to stop funding for the land they own… They had their own councils and they were entitled to that funding, and to run their own schools, and to run their own communities. People had their own jobs there, in their communities. And the worst thing is, you close them, it's like closing down towns right across Australia, not giving them funding, and it's affecting our people. And they have to come into towns like Alice Springs, they have nothing left in their homeland because of that. The biggest purpose we have in our lives, going back home to our country, living there and surviving.
Sophie Raynor
Yeah, and could you explain maybe for someone like me, I’m white, what's the importance of being at home?
Pat Ansell Dodds
It’s the biggest thing. You learn your culture, your language. And that when you’re going back home, that's your home, that’s where you from. So important. I grew up out Undoolya here, that's my home. East of Alice Springs. And it’s all very important to us. And we teach children through that in this country. We never forget our culture and language. It's important for the kids to be proud of who they are. Don’t get put down. Proud to be Aboriginal. Proud to have a culture.
Sophie Raynor
Pat is an artist, and a lecturer in Aboriginal history, and a member of the Strong Grandmothers’ Group, which is a night patrol group that helps keep kids off the streets and out of trouble with police. Pat and her fellow grandmothers meet young people wandering around at night, and give them food, a talking to, or a listening ear.
Pat Ansell Dodds
I’d say to them, what’s your mob doing? I’d say you boys should be home with your mum and dad, not here, walking around and running amok. I’d say this is wrong. What’s the matter, you're hungry or something. And we give them the opportunity; get food and that, and then take them back home. Get somebody; one of the buses, to come pick them up.
Sophie Raynor
And what do they say…
Pat Ansell Dodds
They always say oh, this is white man’s town, we can do what we like. I say yeah, you can go to jail, too. When you keep doing this. This is wrong. This is not your country. This is my country. That's a different way of doing it. Our elders would not see us doing that. When I was a kid, you couldn't do anything like this, you got to respect somebody's country. That's what you learn when you grow up. No matter where you go, you got to respect the people of that area, that country, not just go there to run amok.
Sally Gray
I guess for some context, Soph, Pat will often come as a cultural elder to our restorative justice group conferences. And when we have young people who have offended here in Alice Springs, Pat will sit and listen to what's happened, and then explain to that young person that the offending has occurred on her home country. And culturally, there is a debt now owed to a cultural elder like Pat, for misbehaving like that country. So, she doesn't let young people off lightly. In a restorative group conference, what do you tell them Pat?
Pat Ansell Dodds
When they come here they gotta behave. This is not their country. Coming here, you got to respect this country. It's not just white man’s town, it's more than that. It's Central Arrernte country. And that's what our old people told us, doesn't matter where you go, you can go all of the Territory, all over Australia, but you gotta respect the people when you go there.
Sophie Raynor
To zoom out for a minute, it’s not always easy being a young person in northern Australia. The Territory’s youth unemployment rate is twice the national rate, and young people generally have fewer opportunities for education and training. A lack of services and support, and the traumatic and ongoing effects of colonisation, mean Aboriginal youth in the Territory experience high rates of mental illness – suicide rates are three times higher than for non-Indigenous people, and more than twice as many Aboriginal young people suffer psychological distress. To be clear, these factors don’t cause offending – but understanding them help paints a picture of what’s going on in the lives of the young people Pat meets on the streets at night.
Pat Ansell Dodds
They get angry. When you're a kid and you’re somewhere and you don't want to be there. You get angry and go stupid. And I've seen that happen so much, that the only way you could do it is calm them down. Tell them properly. If they feel nobody cares about them. The parents don't care about them anymore. When they're living in somebody else's country, and they get angry, so they will smash things up.
Sophie Raynor
So if a young person feels like no one cares about them, and they have no accountability or responsibility, is there a role that the general public, the members of the… whole members of a community can play in changing things for that young person?
Pat Ansell Dodds
Stop getting angry and ask them, why are they doing it?
Sophie Raynor
What do you think their answer would be?
Pat Ansell Dodds
When kids play up, they do something wrong, you got to talk to them properly; they get angry. It makes it worse. They start swearing when you do things, trying to tell them to calm down. And giving them something, for instant food and stuff is really good. It makes them calm down and they want to feed. That's mainly what they look for.
Sally Gray
Can I ask a question, Pat?
Pat Ansell Dodds
Mmh.
Sally Gray
Do you think if people in general public paid more respect to elders, maybe other kids would respect them more?
Pat Ansell Dodds
Yeah.
Sally Gray
Is there a place for white Australia to hold up cultural elders
Pat Ansell Dodds
They live in this town – they don't own it. This is our land. And we went through native title of it, to claim Alice Springs. So we have the right to talk up for this country, not been dictated to white people who don't understand our culture, or anything about us. The police should start be learning from them fullus that did night, patrol all these blokes, Aboriginal mob, and walk down the street to calm these kids down. We need more of that. Not police, picking them up and throw them in detention centers. That’s going to affect them for the rest of their life.
Sophie Raynor
And you said earlier that the police treat kids like they're adults.
Pat Ansell Dodds
Yeah. I've walked up to the police myself and I asked them, what are you doing to that kid? Why is he down there like that?
Sophie Raynor
What did the police say, when you say that?
Pat Ansell Dodds
Oh, he done this, he done that; saying what he did. And that he got a complaint about some woman said he threw something on her car. It's a bit more than that. And gave me a little excuse to ring the cops up against our kids.
Sophie Raynor
What could happen instead, instead of calling the police or instead of the cops pushing someone onto the ground, what could happen instead?
Pat Ansell Dodds
I tell them my culture way. Why are you doing that? That's not right. And why are you angry, you and have a feed or something? Things like that. And the best thing is to calmly to them. That's what we need. Tell them to settle down. And there might be things in their life that’s happened that's made them very angry.
Sophie Raynor
There’s a lot for Aboriginal youth in the Territory to be angry about. Statistically, they can expect to encounter poorer health and a lower life expectancy than their non-Indigenous peers. So I asked Pat what she and her community need, to give young people in Alice the support they need – and deserve.
Pat Ansell Dodds
We need support for the kids, for communities, so they can go back home. We need people to understand; not be racist about our people. And these kids, it's getting worse. This is always the same. I've seen this growing up in my life of how white people treat our people. And it's still happening. And Australia walks around with no eyes, especially white people; that don't want to know anything. And they blame Aboriginal people all the time. There's a bigger picture. It has to stop. We got every right to be treated like proper people in this country. People got every right to go back to their homeland and teach their children their own culture and things like that. That's really important.
Sophie Raynor
That was Pat Ansell Dodds and Sally Gray speaking to Worth a Second Chance about the role played by respect and culture and country in keeping kids out of trouble.
While some of the issues Pat’s told us about are challenging, there’s a lot of important and positive work happening in the Territory to give young people the wrap-around therapeutic support they need to take responsibility and make different choices. In the Territory, Jesuit Social Services runs early intervention and restorative justice programs for young people, like the Youth Justice Group Conferencing program that Sally works on – which we’ve heard about a couple of times on this podcast. Young people who have offended gain new insight into their behaviour by sitting in dialogue with people impacted by their actions, and as researcher Rob Bonnett told us on episode five, it can reduce reoffending rates by nearly half, without sending kids to prison.
And we’re really pleased to hear since we recorded this conversation that the Northern Territory Government has committed to raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12, to keep very young children away from detention, and accountable for their actions in their communities. This is a great first step in the right direction, and an opportunity for all states and territories to follow the expert medical advice and international human rights standards, and raise the age to 14.
Sophie Raynor
Worth a Second Chance is a community campaign from Jesuit Social Services. We’re calling for a more fair, humane and effective youth justice system – and we need your help. Learn more, and join the campaign at worthasecondchance.com.au
Thanks to Pat Ansell Dodds and Sally Gray for speaking with me today, and you can find new conversations every second Wednesday. My name is Sophie Raynor, and this was Worth A Second Chance.