The police reminded me that if we did to these kids who broke into our house what is sanctioned and encouraged under Aboriginal law we’d be charged with an offence and be punished far more than they would be.
I already knew this, of course, but pointed out that the traditional way worked to deter crime – ours didn’t.
A senior police officer once stated to me discreetly that we didn’t have a justice system but a legal system. This mislabelled system endorses and supports traditional law only when it can be used to mitigate charges and reduce sentences, never in support of the victims of crimes. The application of punishments that effectively discourage recidivism are outlawed, but those that encourage it are applied.
A girl showed us a video clip the gang had made of themselves while inside our house, passing it around to their friends.
It looked as though these young Central Australian criminals were desperately trying to ape the adult gang culture of black America, so often portrayed by Hollywood and the music industry. The title was Bad Boyz Bloods x B Block Boyz; their theme was “creeping while you’re sleeping”.
Once again we sent the footage, along with names and addresses, to the police. Weeks later we received a message that the police were not going to take any further action, even though we had accumulated all of the evidence they needed to make arrests.
The little would-be gangsters were to face no consequences.
Tradition encourages the shifting of blame as far as possible away from the perpetrator’s family because traditional punishment is very severe and could be imposed on any of the perpetrator’s close family as well as on the perpetrator. There is also a very strong tendency to tell questioners, especially white ones and the police, what it is thought they want to hear rather than what is verifiable truth. This can result in naive confessions and the arrest of the innocent as well as protestations of innocence and blame shifting by offenders.
Several of my wife’s close relatives have been murdered by violent drunks. I could go on for pages listing the names of others known to us, often close to us, who have been the victims of homicide. All were Aboriginal, perpetrators and victims. Now they are also becoming the victims of juvenile property crime. Their property has always been taken by close kin on the basis of the “what’s yours is mine” ethos. Now they are also likely to be robbed by strangers. The organisations funded to do something about all of this are ineffectual. Their primary concern seems to be the maintenance of their funding and excuse making.
They are in the business of blame shifting rather than the protection of citizens and their property and the diversion of youth from a life of crime. They tend to be run by leftist activists more concerned with undermining governments and police, pushing political agendas rather than doing what they are funded to do. Some are frankly corrupt.
It is time for citizens of all ethnicities to take action to defend our town. We are tired of putting our house back together after it has been violated, of replacing stolen items, of burying the victims of homicide, of the excuse making, blame shifting and outright lying.
We are tired of the national narrative that gets nowhere near the truth.https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/a-fathers-lament-as-town-terrorised-by...
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Inquest hears prison system failed Aboriginal inma (Read 280 times)
