What you report is right Lia.

However, the burgeoning nature of crime in the NT has been on an upward trend, almost relentlessly, for the past three decades. It has only ever become worse and worse. The issues of crime are now involving the children of parents who were children back then, many engaged in wrongdoing. This is a generational matter.

Governments of both persuasions have only ever tinkered around the edges of the issue and have been unable or unwilling to go to the root cause of youth crime.

During the mid 1990’s, I wrote two pieces which were published in the NT News under the heading of “Darwin: a city of victims”. It WAS bad then but is infinitely worse now. Even so, the issues we confront in the Top End pale into insignificance compared to crime in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek.

One thing is for certain. While either party is in opposition, that party goes hard on combatting the issue of crime. But once elected to government, that same party finds itself to be impotent in dealing with the issue.

The after dark social agenda is a proactive one, set by criminals both young and not so young. Authorities are reduced to being reactive in terms of dealing with the problem.

God help Darwin and the NT in a decade from now.