Dear Editor,
Sitting in Gillen on another beautiful Central Australian day, I’m wondering what the most recent curfew was supposed to achieve?
There is no evidence curfews do anything to stop crime. This one hasn’t stopped my friend’s car from being stolen overnight.
It’s election time and the government has to be seen to be doing something, I suppose. Sadly, this is just more of the same race to the bottom, tough on crime, sloganeering that the ALP and CLP bring on each election. It doesn’t work. In spite of harsher sentencing and more policing the gaols are full and crime continues.
I want my taxes used differently, to deal with the drivers of crime. More and more people are living on the streets or in the river. More than 200 kids are homeless each night but there are only seven emergency beds.
Gaoling is failing – failing all of us – and the curfew is part of that. We need policies and programs to look after vulnerable people in our community (including victims of crime of course), to keep kids out of gaol, keep families connected, give people hope for the future.
The Greens offer these policies.
David Eldridge, Gillen
If you want your letter to the editor published send it to ntindependent@protonmail.com. Please include your name, address and phone number for verification. We will only publish your name and suburb or town. We do reserve the right to edit the letter for length and clarity purposes. PRIVACY POLICY: You can find our privacy policy by clicking here.
The only time the streets were safe was when the CLP governed and were tough on crime. The prisons population was very much lower. we did not need to lock our doors. The greens protested those ‘harsh and racist’ policies and that is where we are today. Good luck with voting Green.