Why is it that with all the discussions happening about youth crime, (a phenomena that’s becoming worse and worse), that parents and primary caregivers are not held in any way to be responsible for the conduct of young people under their management control.

My first acquaintance with the issue of out- of-control crime in Darwin goes back to a forum held on the subject in 1989 (I think) in the Casuarina Uniting Church. At some point in time I will write on the outcome of that two day meeting. Suffice it to say, that a lot of the children offending these days are the children and indeed the grandchildren of those who were creating the problems of criminal behaviour back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Criminal behaviour by young people is sadly an indelible part and underpinning behaviour in the Northern Territory. It has become entrenched.