Author: Harry Blagg and Giulietta Valuri
Crime Research Centre
University of Western Australia
with the assistance of:
Anna Ferrante
Donella Raye
Natalie St. John
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An Overview of Night Patrol Services in Australia
Attorney-General’s Department, Canberra
© Commonwealth of Australia, March 2003
ISBN 0 642 21169 8
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the view of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Whilst all reasonable care has been taken in the preparation of this publication,
no liability is assumed for any errors or omissions.
Design: Design Direction, Canberra
Print: Pirion, Fyshwick
Publisher: Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department
This project was undertaken by the Crime Prevention Branch of the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department in partnership with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
The survey and database
A snowball process
The purpose of the survey
Site visits
Site visits to the Northern Territory, Queensland and New South
Wales
Towards a working definition of night patrols
Problems with terminology
What do night patrols do?
Initiatives designed to enhance community safety and security
– some international developments
Community warden schemes in Britain
The City wardens (Stadswacht) in Holland
Night Patrols in Australia: Reviewing some key literature
The Northern Territory
Addressing the Cycle of Failure
Establishing and planning night patrols
Women and family violence
Western Australia
Community justice in Queensland
Street Beat in New South Wales
South Australia and Victoria
Night patrols contacted
The main focus of patrols
Main target groups
Numbers contacted by patrols
Police/patrol contact
Patrol’s response to businesses and residents
Evidence from the night patrol survey
The Yamatji experience in Geraldton,Western Australia
A note on warden schemes in Western Australia
Law and justice
Funding responsibility
Women’s patrols
Police perspectives
Failed patrols
Innovations in the Alice Springs area
Innovations in the Top End - Ali Curung
The Ali Curung safe house
Acknowledging local competencies and value adding
Evidence from the Night Patrol survey
Patrols in Queensland
Patrols in New South Wales
Patrols in South Australia
Patrols in Victoria
Agents of the community?
Cultural authority
Street sweeping
Funding sources
A secure funding base
Crime prevention
Community leadership
Partnership
Women’s business
Accepting diversity and difference
Recommendations
Substantive literature
Other sources
Audio visual material
The aim of this project has been to produce a national profile of night patrol and similar services around Australia, including:
The research process has involved:
The aim of this research is to provide baseline knowledge about night patrols1 in Australia and to build a database containing primary information. Knowledge about night patrols has been assembled through the triangulation of three different sets of data:
A range of organisations (government and non-government) across Australia provided the necessary information to construct the database. A mailing list was developed on the basis of:
More than one hundred potential targets were reduced to approximately ninety-six following an initial contact. Of these, around fifty completed the survey. Follow-up contacts with schemes which had not returned surveys yielded a further thirteen3.
The survey became a primary research instrument in its own right. It had been anticipated that the database would simply constitute an outcome of the research process. Instead the database became a valuable tool in the research process.
There was a snowballing dimension to the research process, as is often the case with exploratory projects of phenomena that are situationally and organisationally dispersed. A number of night patrol initiatives were identified incrementally as contacts were made with communities and agencies during site visits and relevant meetings. For example:
This snowball phenomenon expanded the range of agencies and groups available for inclusion in the study.
There are in excess of one hundred night patrol schemes or similar services at various stages in the life cycle of such organisations. Many night patrols in remote areas in particular, operate intermittently, and they may suddenly cease to function due to a financial crisis, community conflict, loss of energy of key players, or a host of other eventualities.4
The survey was intended to gauge the scope and content of Night Patrol work and identify:
The return rate for the survey was sufficient to provide a wealth of detail.
The site visits undertaken by research staff were crucial in assessing the context in which night patrols operate. Research staff were significantly influenced by the views, opinions and experiences of patrollers and by those agencies and groups who liaise with them.
Field trips made in Western Australia, included:
A number of forums enabled research staff to participate in ongoing discussions. These included:
Information about patrols was also gathered through site visits outside Western Australia. These included visits to the south and top end of Northern Territory, Far North Queensland and Brisbane, northern New South Wales and Sydney.5
These visits were undertaken to gain an understanding of the various sites, key stakeholders and contexts within which community patrols operate.
An objective of the research was to obtain some kind of comparison between Indigenous night patrols and similar programs within mainstream agencies. This was done by contacting initiatives, such as Street Beat programs in New South Wales and the Management of Public Intoxication Programs in Queensland. It proved difficult to separate Indigenous and non-Indigenous programs, other than at the funding level. This is because many schemes set up to deal with problems such as homelessness or young people’s anti-social behaviour, serve both Indigenous and non-Indigenous clients.
This report provides an analysis of night patrols and related services across Australia. While there has been an attempt to capture the diversity of practice across Australia, the analysis has been tilted towards those schemes operating in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Debate about night patrols has tended to be more advanced in these two localities where there are significantly more schemes undertaking patrol based forms of intervention. In all, examples from Western Australia and the Northern Territory represent more than sixty per cent of projects in the responses to the survey.
What precisely are night patrols and from what perspective, or range of perspectives, should they be assessed? Are they essentially fulfilling a policing, crime prevention, community safety, or health role? Where do they fit with existing and emerging crime prevention philosophies and strategies? Should they be seen as new mechanisms for extending the reach of existing law and justice systems – or encouraging what European criminologists are calling responsibilisation6? Complementary initiatives in Europe, such as community warden schemes in England and the Stadswacht schemes in Holland, are playing an increasingly prominent role in the prevention of incivilities in urban settings. In what sense can initiatives in Australia be said to fit into a like category?
The Indigenous dimension brings to the discussion a particular constellation of historical and contemporary concerns quite unlike those emerging in European and North American debates about community self-policing. It raises questions about Indigenous self-management and governance. Do night patrols - at least those clearly working from within what Indigenous people call ‘Aboriginal Terms of Reference’7 - represent embryonic Indigenous community justice mechanisms or elements of an expanding and deepening Indigenous domain? Or should they be seen as simply filling a vacuum created by the absence, or inadequacy, of policing, crime prevention and community safety instrumentalities in Indigenous communities, better filled by mainstream services?
There are a number of potential (and equally valid) dimensions to an analysis of night patrols. Some dimensions are concerned with establishing forms of policing, security and crime prevention. Others are concerned with their specific relationship to Indigenous self-management and a range of conditions unique to the experience of Indigenous people.
What is a workable definition of night patrols? In a broad sense the patrols provide non-coercive community intervention, or order maintenance, services designed to prevent or stop harm, and maintain community peace, security and safety. Patrols carry out a form of community based policing, but they should not be confused with the police or private security.8
The service they provide generally includes a mobile-patrol of some form (on foot or by vehicle), and attempts to assist a target group of people in need, or at risk, by offering options other than those principally available to the police.
A patrol would generally emerge to serve and protect the interests of a particular community, initiated by members of that community.
Community, in this context, does not refer to a fixed, geographical locality, rather, it is a constituency or socio-cultural community. While some patrols do confine their work to a distinctly boundaried physical space, such as a remote community, a specific ‘hot-spot’ or cluster of ‘hot spots’, others may track a particular client group (Aboriginal youth for example) across a range of public and ‘privately owned-public’9 spaces to ensure their safety and/or prevent crime and anti-social behaviour. For purposes of this inquiry, it was important to select those projects across Australia involved in some kind of activity congruent with the initial description of a night patrol.
A community night patrol fits within the frame of reference established by this study if it operates without police powers, that is, special powers vested singularly in the public police to stop, question, detain and/or arrest people. Arrest remains the ‘special competence’ of the public police (Bayley and Shearing 1996 p.592). Other policing bodies, while they may borrow elements of the public police service’s organisational persona, cannot share in this competence. This is not to say that patrols do not carry out policing activities. As Bayley and Shearing (1996), established in their work on new forms of policing practices, patrols can be seen as one of a variety of policing innovations, in an era when policing is becoming more diversified and pluralised.
The term, ‘night patrols’ is not generic across Australia, having been coined to describe community initiatives developed in the Northern Territory to self-police Aboriginal communities and enforce community by-laws. Since then, however, Indigenous people and government agencies in other states have developed variations on this initial theme, and while they have adapted the model, they have tended to coin their own names to describe their local practice. Patrols in Western Australia, for example, tend to be called street patrols or community patrols. In South Australia they are known as mobile assistance patrols and, in Victoria, foot patrols. Patrols linked to Community Justice Groups in Queensland (particularly those in remote areas) have been described as bare foot patrols by Aboriginal people.
Patrols contacted in New South Wales are known as street beat programs (in Redfern, Kempsey, Ballina and Moree for example). Many urban programs in southern Queensland and New South Wales have a strong affinity to, and have emerged from, youth outreach work. Many of the programs deal with Indigenous youth, offer a safe transportation service and operate on a consensus and mediation model, according to principles of client empowerment which are principles common to night patrols. A number of street based programs in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast funded under Queensland’s Management of Public Intoxication Program would also fit into this category.
Night Patrols have become a distinctive feature of the communal landscape in Indigenous Australia:
The core functions of patrols are to provide basic services such as safe transportation, diversion from contact with the criminal justice system, and intervention to prevent disorder in communities. constitute the core function of patrols. However, the research found that many patrols are developing sophisticated case-work arms and are engaging in multi-agency liaison in their localities.
It also became apparent that patrols have emerged to deal with specific local issues not addressed by other bodies. These issues varied from place to place, for example:
Irrespective of their origins, many night patrols have shown themselves to be immensely flexible and able to develop initiatives as an adjunct to their own work and/or develop partnerships with other relevant agencies.
The increasingly familiar relationship between patrols, sobering up shelters and safe houses is an obvious example of these partnerships, but there is also evidence of expanding links between mental health, drug and alcohol, and family violence services.
The literature review focuses on two interrelated dimensions of this research, policing and crime prevention, and issues specific to Indigenous people and patrol services.
This literature review provides a framework for discussion about the roles, rationale and effectiveness of night patrols and related services in Australia. The review assesses literature on night patrols and related services. It also examines innovations of a similar nature overseas, as well as discussing pertinent theories about the direction of policing in society. Indigenous night patrols do not operate in a vacuum. They are influenced by a host of political, economic and cultural shifts taking place within society at large. These shifts will continue to have an impact on the way night patrols are viewed by government and non-government agencies.
On an international level, agencies such as the police are having to adapt to a world in which their own efforts are only a part of the overall policing of a modern society (The Report of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, 1999, p 3). New policies and practices around coordinated crime prevention and what Bayley and Shearing (2001) call the ‘multilateralisation’ of policing, put greater pressures on night patrols while simultaneously creating new opportunities for the wider recognition of their value and attracting new sources of funding. Night patrols and similar services may represent a distinctly Australian variant of the multilateralisation process.
Internationally, three inter-related processes form the context for the emergence of locally auspiced initiatives in self-policing. These are:
Evidence from overseas reveals significant changes taking place in the ways many local communities and urban environments are being policed. Aside from the proliferation of private security firms (their numbers now dwarf those of the official police), a number of societies are also experimenting with new types of ‘community warden’ schemes (Holland, Belgium, Britain, United States of America). Many of these new private security organisations have emerged to regulate access to, and behaviour in, new urban and suburban environments such as shopping malls – referred to as ‘mass private property’ because, while they tend to be privately owned, they are widely accessible to the public (Shearing and Stenning 1981, p 9).
Others, such as wardens’ schemes, have developed because of popular concerns about anti-social behaviour and personal safety in cities and residential zones. These are of interest to this research because these schemes are largely operated by agencies other than official police bodies, offer services similar to many night patrols, and operate without recourse to policing powers.
This seems to be part of a global trend. Bayley and Shearing (2001), point to an historic restructuring of policing taking place on a world wide scale. They argue that it is an over-simplification to characterise this process simply as privatisation – since the very concepts of ‘public’ and ‘private’ are increasingly blurred, and constantly redefined, in contemporary society. Instead, they describe it as process of ‘multilateralisation’. What clearly distinguishes the process is the increased separation of ‘authorisation’ from ‘action’, and the transference of both away from government. Bayley and Shearing (2001) maintain that those who authorise policing are not always the same as those who provide it and increasingly agencies other than government are auspicing policing and related services (p.7).
Bayley and Shearing identify four such interest groups: economic interests (legal and illegal), residential communities, cultural communities, and individuals. Each is increasingly purchasing and/or providing its own security. While these new security organisations perform many of the same tasks, they employ distinct practices, in particular, non-governmental providers work by ‘exclusion and the regulation of access’ rather than resorting to the retributive criminal law (Bayley and Shearing, 2001, p.2). Government policy has been active in enabling this process of multilateralisation to take place. It has done so by creating permissive environments and by actively encouraging non-state police activity (Bayley and Shearing, 2001, p.9).
Since the early 1980s, governments across the developed world have actively fostered community participation in policing through community crime prevention and similar local partnership initiatives. These have been based on a multi-agency approach and identified community involvement as a key priority in dealing with local crime and disorder issues. Local partnership forums were encouraged to knit together a diversity of interest groups (government and non-government) to devise local solutions to crime problems (Blagg et al, 1988; Pearson al et, 1992; Crawford, 1995). These initiatives signalled a shift in the provision of urban security and safety. Crawford presents a broad typology of policies in Europe designed to increase urban safety. This comprises:
According to Crawford, the policies emerging from the new approach:
...call for a reconfiguration of the traditional policy process – which is both hierarchical and departmental – through the development of cross-cutting policies which combine the synergy of the various actors and partner organisations. It seeks to co-ordinate national and local polices and practices, as well as synchronise private and public provision of security services (Crawford, 2000, p.2).
A clear lesson from ten or so years of innovation in the area of partnership and decentralisation is a fundamental shift in thinking about the role of the ‘active citizen’ in community crime prevention. Citizens themselves are now considered to have valuable skills, expertise, knowledge and ideas about their own localities and how they could be made more secure and safe. The development of various forms of community-based self-policing initiatives and other forms of community crime prevention, bears testimony to the potential role active citizenship can play in improving levels of safety in local communities.
On the other hand, concerns have been expressed about the ‘genuineness’ of the commitment to partnership by some powerful State agencies. Too often, the ‘reality’ of partnership has not matched the ‘rhetoric’ (Blagg, et al, 1988; Crawford, 1998; Sampson et al; 1988), and powerful agencies have, on occasion, seen these processes as an opportunity to extend their reach, without actually sharing power. Often:
Irrespective of such reservations, there are some obvious advantages for many communities in the development of local partnering arrangements. Aboriginal communities, for example, may be able to negotiate protocols and memoranda of understanding with a network of agencies, over a diversity of issues.
The emphasis on a broad range of ‘hazards’ or ‘harms’ enables the emergence of new forms of co-ordinated planning and resource allocation, and the targeting of clusters of problems, rather than focusing on single issues. Good, ‘joined-up’ work ensures that the multiple problems of communities, and their most vulnerable members, can be dealt with conjointly rather than in a piece-meal fashion.
The dangers inherent in this multilateralisation process, according to Bayley and Shearing (2001), include issues of ‘justice, equality of protection, and quality of service’. The poor, in particular, may lose out because they lack the resources to purchase security directly from the market place.
Bayley and Shearing draw attention to the global dynamics at work. Shearing’s work has also been influential in allowing us to ‘think outside the box’, where policing is concerned. Shearing (1994) differentiates between the police and policing. He suggests that efforts are often focused on the best way to reform or extend the police rather than on nurturing alternative modes of policing. Shearing argues that it is important to refocus thinking from a preoccupation with the police organisation as a source of policing, to other sources of policing. He claims that:
Once policing is seen as something that is, and can be, done by other institutions besides the … police, new possibilities become available (1994 a, p.58).
In general, discussions about Indigenous people and the justice system in Australia have tended to revolve around concerns about the impact of policing on Indigenous people (the under-policing/over-policing debate), discriminatory practices, police accountability, human rights, and the recruitment of Indigenous people into the established police. Reform strategies have focused largely on changing police practice, rather than exploring alternative forms of policing.
The emergence of night patrols widens and deepens the parameters of the debate. Issues include the legal rights of suspects, police accountability, the police culture, recruitment of Indigenous people in to the police service, and the role of Aboriginal liaison officers. It remains crucial to look at the resources required to build capacity within Indigenous communities to provide, or purchase, their own order maintenance, including in areas where there is significant under-policing.
Community warden schemes of various kinds operate in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Holland and some cities in the United States of America. Their focus is on enhancing the ‘liveability’ of towns and cities. Warden schemes in Britain have been described as part of the ‘policing family’ and have emerged to, ‘improve the local environment, particularly in relation to litter, graffiti, and anti-social behaviour as well as promoting community safety’ (Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, 2000, p.17). They have a clear crime prevention function and are intended to complement, not replace, the work of the police.
Their goals include:
The schemes have been influenced by the city wardens in Holland and are widespread across Britain in most major cities. An evaluation of selected schemes was generally positive and supportive of warden schemes, particularly in relation to their role in reducing the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as improving the environment and the quality of life, although they did not appear to directly impact on crime rates as such (Stockdale, Whitehead and Gresham, 2001).
The Dutch City Wardens (the Stadswacht) are ‘supervisory officials charged with the reduction of petty or common forms of crime, particularly in city centres’ (Hauber, et al, 1996 p.199). The uniforms vary from city to city in Holland, but are different from police uniforms, or from those worn by private security officers. The wardens operate without formal police powers, their powers being the same as any citizen who sees an offence committed. Wardens become involved in preventing and intervening in minor street offences. They do this:
...at a lower cost than traditional police forces and with relatively few adverse consequences such as violence and escalation of the potential for conflict in interactions with members of the public (Hauber et al, 1996 p 356).
Wardens fulfil a diversity of roles, including providing ‘information and assistance to the public and intervening to talk to perpetrators of offences. Jackobson and Saville (1999) summarise their tasks as:
Hauber et al (1996) maintain that the conventional exercise of formal powers is not always appropriate, or necessary, when dealing with issues in contemporary social situations, particularly given that relationships between citizens and public officials in today’s civil society have become more horizontal. There is less unquestioning deference to authority and indeed, public demonstrations of authority can, in fact, have an escalating effect (Hauber et al, 1996 p.357).
On the one hand, there are public situations where the norms of appropriate social behaviour are violated. The solution is to remind citizens about their social responsibilities and obligations. The warden’s role is to step in and remind citizens of appropriate rules of conduct without recourse to force and coercion or formal criminal sanctions. As with night patrols, the emphasis is on negotiation and working from a position of moral authority rather than imposing formal powers. The wardens answer the needs of a large part of the population – especially the elderly – for locally presented uniformed officials to enforce public order in the public domain (Hauber, 1996, p.358).
Hauber at al, concluded that the very presence of the wardens had a reassuring effect. Interactions between the wardens and the public tended to be positive and did not escalate into confrontation. The job requires considerable social skills. The wardens are recruited from the unemployed. While there have been concerns about the skill level of some wardens, there have also been recommendations that a career path be established for them. They are funded mainly by the Dutch Department of Employment with a contribution by local authorities.
In 1998-9, around one hundred and fifty municipalities in Holland had warden schemes (Jackobson and Saville 1999). Research by Hauber et al, (1996) and by Eysenk, Smeets and Etman (2000) indicates that the warden scheme has a positive crime prevention and crime reduction effect. Moreover, the research found that people who used city places felt safer because of the wardens and believed they contributed to public safety and crime reduction (Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, 2000). Van Brakel (2000) also asserts that the schemes have enhanced the liveability of Dutch cities and have developed good relations with police. He emphasises a number of key issues, including the need for wardens to have recognisable uniforms and the need for continuity of staff (Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, 2000, p.23).
Warden schemes are viewed in some quarters as a new mechanism for increasing public confidence and sense of security by fulfilling functions that the official police are increasingly unable to perform. Australia has had considerable experience of community self-policing with a similar goal of enhancing the safety and security of the local community. Many night patrol schemes have been in existence for far longer than their counterparts in Europe.
There is little literature on night patrols in Australia offering a rigorous evaluation of their effectiveness. There is an amount of ‘grey literature’, that is literature featuring patrols but where the patrols themselves are not the main issue. For example, they appear in Memmott’s work on violence (Memmott, et al 2000) and Blagg’s work on family violence crisis prevention and crisis intervention (Blagg 1999, 2000a and b, 2001). Patrols are also discussed in the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
The Law Reform Commission of Australia’s review of customary law discussed self-policing as part of Section 32: Aborigines and the Police. The report identified a core concern of Aboriginal people in relation to policing. That is, that Aboriginal people want a police presence and they want to have a voice in how this policing was carried out. The Commission noted, in relation to the Northern Territory, for example, that:
The Commission has not received any requests from Aboriginal communities for the removal of police stationed in their communities, nor has there been any denial of the need for police. On the contrary, some communities in the Northern Territory which have no permanent police station have sought one, and many Aborigines would strongly resist any attempts to limit their access to the police. What many Aborigines seek, especially those living in separate communities, whether in remote areas or on the fringes of country towns, is a greater degree of control over what takes place in the community. A central aspect of this is policing (Law Reform Commission – Australia, 1986, p.97).
The Commission noted the existence of a number of self-policing initiatives across Australia, some of which have elements in common with current night patrols. These included:
The Commission went on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of self-policing and concluded that it ‘advantages both communities and the State and Territory police forces’ (Law Reform Commission – Australia, 1986, p.105). In relation to communities, the Commission argued that self-policing could ensure that communities were able to ‘deal with trouble makers in a more flexible manner...more appropriate to circumstances and more in accord with local customary law’. While the police might benefit because of reduced demands on their time, the Commission also maintained that self-policing, as in the Redfern case, could be of value in urban areas. The risks included unreliable services and the danger of partiality (Law Reform Commission – Australia 1986, p.105).
Much of the substantive literature on patrols has emerged in the context of discussions about alcohol control strategies and the de-criminalisation of public drunkenness, particularly in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The focus in this work tends to be on the relationship between patrols, sobering up shelters and diversion from detention in police custody. The National Drug Research Institute evaluated night patrols largely in these contexts (Gray, Saggers, Sputore, and Bourbon, 2000; Gray and Saggers, 2000). The question about alcohol use still frames a good deal of the discussion of the role of night patrols (Parliament of Victoria Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, 2001).
Some recent work in New South Wales has evaluated a number of street beat programs, from a crime prevention and human rights perspectives. Mainstream policing research literature has tended to be silent on the issue, so too has recent critical work on the private policing industry in Australia.
Cunneen (2001) refers to patrols as part of an Indigenous response to problems with mainstream models of policing. Memmott’s (2000) study on violence in Indigenous communities discusses the role of Geraldton Streetwork (Western Australia) in terms of the support programs they offer following family violence and in ‘strengthening identity’ (Memmott et al, 2000, p.65). A number of other patrol services – Yamatji and Wunngagutu (Western Australia), Tangentyere, Julalikari, Kalano and Ngukurr (Northern Territory) have been identified by Memmott as forms of community policing and monitoring services. Memmott categorises these programs as fulfilling a policing role in relation to violence and alcohol abuse.
Their tasks include intervention, mediation and dispute resolution between people in conflict, and the removal of potentially violent persons from public or private social environments (Memmott et al 2000, p.67).
Memmott argues that the idea has enormous potential:
Its capacity as a self-controlled volunteer community intervention program with a relatively low budget has great utility and potential…Properly managed, such programs also have great potential to build cooperation and mutual respect and support with local police. Night patrols are a tried and proven program type (Memmott et al 2000, p.68).
As Memmott et al suggest, the idea for night patrols originated in the Northern Territory – at Julalikari.
The first widely accessible discussion of the role of night patrols took place in the Northern Territory as part of the deliberations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991). The Julalikari patrol in Tennant Creek, instigated by the Julalikari Council in the late 1980s, was featured as a positive form of ‘voluntary community policing’ (Report of the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the Northern Territory, 1991 p.439). The context in which discussion of patrols took place in the Royal Commission was varied - but inadequate policing services featured prominently as a reason for their emergence. The background to the Royal Commission report Too much sorry business, by the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the Northern Territory, said of Julalikari:
The involvement of Aboriginal Councillors in voluntary policing...and their preparedness to use their own vehicles and money to patrol the streets and camps every night, points to their dissatisfaction with policing in their communities (Report of the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the Northern Territory, 1991, p.439).
Curtis (1992), in his assessment of Julalikari, puts matters more bluntly. He said that the Julalikari Patrol began, because there was nothing else.
While it was not obvious to government agencies, it was tragically clear to the Julalikari community that something had to be done if the escalating violence, trauma and deaths in the town-camps were to be halted (p.2).
The strength of the patrol, according to the Aboriginal Issues Unit, lay in its capacity to resolve conflicts between Aboriginal people in an ‘Aboriginal way’. Their use of Aboriginal language made an enormous difference to their success (Report of the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the Northern Territory, 1991, p.439). The Aboriginal Issues Unit saw Aboriginal offending linked to alcohol, disrespect for Aboriginal law (by both Indigenous youth and non-Indigenous people), the inadequacy of existing services attempting to deal with the multiple problems of the community, and poverty. The patrol did not simply police the community, but became actively involved in trying to resolve underlying disputes. The reports also pointed to an emerging concern with Aboriginal family violence – presenting police figures showing that fifty per cent of disturbances attended by police in Tennant Creek involved domestic violence, and ninety-five per cent of these involved alcohol (Report of the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the Northern Territory, 1991, p.440).
The success of the Julalikari Patrol was highlighted by the Royal Commission and was included in Recommendation 220. This suggested that the patrols similar to the Julalikari Patrol, working in parallel with community justice panels, should be:
examined with a view to introducing similar schemes into Aboriginal communities that are willing to operate them because they have the potential to improve policing and to improve relations between police and Aboriginal people rapidly and to substantially lower crime rates (Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, 1991, p.118).
The literature from the Northern Territory reveals some examples of fruitful partnership between the night patrol at Julalikari and the police. On the other hand there were also signs of tension as competing definitions of the role and purposes of patrols began to surface.
Curtis (1992), for example, rejects the police description of the purpose of night patrols, as assisting in removing intoxicated persons from the streets. He suggests this is a misrepresentation of patrol work:
…the object of the patrol is not to assist in removing intoxicated persons from the streets. This is a frequent case of misunderstanding for the police and the general public. The object is to resolve problems in the town camps and special purpose leases; to settle disputes when they begin and not after the have exploded, drawing in extended families or entire tribal groups (p.75).
Curtis also maintains that the patrol was able to function successfully because it was strongly embedded in the Aboriginal Council.
Mosey (1994) alerts us two interrelated issues. First, she argues that, initially at least, little is required to set up a night patrol, second, she suggests that vehicles, radios and other infrastructure supports are not always essential – they may even undermine an initiative when they are appropriated for wrong purposes (Mosey 1994, p.9). Mosey identifies a number of pre-requisites for successful implementation of a night patrol initiative including, community consultation, establishing protocols with local police, clear task descriptions for patrollers, and a sound administrative base. She argues that patrollers should not be drinkers, there needs to be a willing pool of volunteers, and traditional owners and elders need to endorse the patrol.
Curtis (1992) draws attention to the need to have patrols that are embedded in community structures – in the Julalikari case, the council. Ownership by the community and its key institutions is vital. Many communities need outside support for night patrols to flourish and, left to themselves, they will struggle to survive.
Higgins (1997) reviewed seven projects in Alice Springs, Darwin, Daguragu/Kalkaringi, Ngukurr, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Yirrkala and Yuendumu. Higgins found that while about fifty three night patrols and warden schemes had been established, only half were operating at the time of the audit.
The Higgins report addressed five evaluation criteria: community input and control structures; administrative and management structures; resource structures; linkages and network structures, and monitoring and evaluation structures.
Higgins concluded that:
The general conclusion was that governments need to nurture and support night patrols while maintaining a watching brief which
…ensures schemes are not ignored or abandoned by government, but are not subject to undue controls either. …this should involve addressing the funding of schemes on their merit, rather than applying a proscriptive funding formula (Higgins 1997, p.45).
The Higgins report sets out some best practice guidelines for patrols. Essentially they establish what he calls authenticating structures for establishing and developing night patrols involving processes, procedures and methodology for development, implementation and funding (p.45).
Recent work by Ryan (2001) has further highlighted the problems associated with implementing and sustaining a night patrol service in remote communities. Reviewing problems of establishing and maintaining a patrol in Lajamanu, Ryan notes:
The Lajamanu community has made a number of attempts to set up a functioning service over the past few years that have all eventually fallen over. A cycle of failure with Aboriginal community night patrols is extremely common. The reasons for this situation are complex and include a range of social and cultural issues. Some of these are the failure of traditional social management and control structures under the impact of social change, alcohol related issues, generational conflict between older and more traditionally orientated people, community youth, and conflict between families and residents in the community. Although the community through the law and justice committee has undertaken some planning work in this regard, the scope of the work is beyond the capacity of the local community to resolve (p.2).
Ryan, drawing on his involvement in night patrols and the work of Mosey and Higgins, attributes the failure of night patrol services in Aboriginal communities to poor establishment practices (Ryan, 2001, p.2). His review of establishment procedures in Ali-Curung, Numbulwar and Port Keats12 in 1996 identified factors common to failed initiatives in these communities. These included:
A number of strategies have emerged as a means of overcoming the problems Ryan, Mosey and Higgins have identified with regard to deficient establishment practices. Ryan (2001) suggests a two phase process involving a ‘pre-establishment phase’ and an ‘establishment support program’ (p.5). The first includes assessing the preparedness of communities to undertake a patrol and, if prepared to work to embed the idea in the community. The second phase includes providing resources for establishing operational and administrative support mechanisms.
A factor often neglected in the literature on night patrols is the crucial role played by Indigenous women in establishing and sustaining initiatives. In recent years, Indigenous women have taken a stand against the unacceptable levels of violence and other problems in communities (Bolger, 1998). Some of the most effective patrols have been established by women in remote areas – Lajamanu, Ali-Curung, Yuendumu, for example - to prevent infringements of ‘no grog’ law, prevent ‘sly grogging’ and ‘drinking, fighting and humbugging’ (Yuendumu Women’s Night Patrol; Remote Area Night Patrols, News Letter 2001).
Women’s night patrols are mentioned as an important community resource for combating family violence in the Territory’s Aboriginal Family Violence Strategy. Langton (1992) also refers to night patrols as a means by which Aboriginal women have been able to take a role in policing their own communities and reducing levels of family violence.
Family violence is one of the most pressing issues facing Indigenous people. It is clear that night patrols have a role to play in combating the problem.
Few patrols in Western Australia have been subjected to rigorous evaluation. Blagg and Ferrante (1997) made some rudimentary assessments of the function and impact of patrols as part of a review of the impact of the juvenile justice system on Indigenous youth. This was followed by a brief update as part of a review of Aboriginal/police relationships in 1998-9 by Blagg and Ferrante. The reports provided some statistical information showing the contribution made by patrols in terms of reductions in admissions to police lock-ups. This was an important issue in Western Australia, given the high rate of deaths in police custody, highlighted by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991).
It is possible that some forms of patrolling, linked to community justice arrangements, had been undertaken on a limited basis in Western Australia before they became formally recognised as a distinct practice in the early 1990s. The ‘Ten-Man Committee’ at the Strelley Community in the East Pilbara regularly picked up offenders and drinkers from various points around Port Hedland and took them back to the community to face a community meeting (Law Reform Commission - Australia, 1986).
The first formally constituted street patrol in Western Australia was the Kullarri Patrol, established in Broome (West Kimberly) in 1992, following a field study of the Tangentyere Night Patrol. A group of Indigenous patrollers was formed and provided with resources such as a van, uniforms, radios and a base. Financial support was given by the shire, Aboriginal Affairs Department and the Bidyadanga Aboriginal community. After Kullarri, the Yamatji Patrol was established in Geraldton and Numbud in Derby. By 1996 there were thirteen patrols in operation, and there are now twenty-one.
Successive Aboriginal Justice Council reports monitoring the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991) recommendations were unequivocal in their support for the night patrols (Aboriginal Justice Council, 1995, 1996, 2000). The 2000 report describes patrols as examples of successful community-based initiatives (Aboriginal Justice Council, 2000, p.67). The Council argued:
Community patrols are mandated with the task of diverting Aboriginal people from police custody by picking them up and taking them to a ‘safe place’. Each patrol has its own management and focuses on the main issues and social problems encountered by their community i.e. solvent abuse (sniffing), alcohol use, truancy and hanging out late at night (Aboriginal Justice Council, 2000, p.67).
The Council, using Crime Research Centre statistics, identified Derby and Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley Region and Wiluna in the Gascoyne/Murchison Region as examples where effective patrols had made an impact on lock-up statistics - with a thirty-three per cent, thirty per cent and thirty-six per cent reduction respectively, between 1994-96. The Council called on the Northern Territory government to support the initiatives and increase their resources, and required the police to acknowledge that these were genuine community initiatives, designed and managed by Indigenous organisations.
The Police Service needs to heed this fact and work in partnerships with the local Aboriginal community rather than in dictatorship of the Program. Community management equals community success (Aboriginal Justice Council, 2000,p.68).
The National Drug Research Institute looked at patrols within the context of alcohol related issues in Halls Creek and Kununurra (National Drug Research Institute, 1999, 2000). In Halls Creek, the issue of alcohol abuse was at the forefront when the patrol was set up. The National Drug Research Institute research found that the main aims of the patrol were to assist intoxicated persons to the sobering up shelter, provide support to women and children at risk, identify incidences of domestic violence, and aid police in finding solutions (National Drug Research Institute, 2000, p.4). The research concluded that the patrol had been successful in:
identifying people in need of immediate assistance and to responding to those needs. In addition, the patrol appears to have made some contribution to reducing domestic disturbances and violent offences against persons (p.19).
Locally, the strengths of the patrol were seen in terms of its good working relations with police, its impact on violence, its sound management and its attempts to tackle issues such as youth anti-social behaviour. The National Drug Research Institute recommended that the patrol extend its hours of work on Fridays (starting at 3.00 pm rather than 5.00 pm), advertise its contact details more widely, be more proactive at local events and cement relationships with the police by having police on the patrol four times a year. Blagg and Ferrante (1995), in their assessment of Halls Creek Patrol, following a widely publicised ‘riot’ attributed to Balgo Hills people also suggested better coordination between the patrol, police, and other agencies, including wardens from Balgo, when they come to town.
An evaluation of alcohol projects in Kununurra and Wyndham (Sputore et al, 1998) discussed the Mirriwong patrol (later changed to Waringarri to reflect the profile of the whole community, as the research had recommended). Mirriwong Patrol was set up to stem the flow of people being detained by police for alcohol related issues. It also became involved in offering a school bus service in the mornings and afternoons in an attempt to reduce anti-social behaviour, under age drinking and the numbers of intoxicated persons on licensed premises. The patrol worked in partnership with the local sobering up shelter. The evaluation of the impact of the work of the patrol on detention rates (based on Crime Research Centre statistics) revealed that between 1994 and 1996, there was ‘a dramatic decrease in the number of Aboriginal people detained in police custody’ (Sputore, et al, 1998, p.51). There was a reduction from 1,336 arrests in 1995 to 188 in 1996, attributable to the work of the patrol, sobering up shelter, and the police - the latter were also moving people to the sobering up shelter rather than detaining them.
There was a strong perception locally that the patrol had an impact on anti-social behaviour, although there was no quantitative evidence to this effect because of the lack of records. Nevertheless, the evaluation identified another significant factor relating to Indigenous arrest rates. In some time periods, the arrest rate of Indigenous people actually increased. The authors speculate that the very presence of the patrol may have allowed a redistribution of police activities, which might have increased the clear-up rate and increased the number of arrests (Sputore, et al, 1998, p.53). It is by no means a clear cut picture. The researchers also they also found arrest rates increased in some periods when the patrol was not operating.
The evaluation also uncovered some hostility between the patrol and young people. The kinship links between some patrollers and young people sometimes increased tensions due to a strict ‘guardianship’ relationship, which frequently over-rode the patrol’s principle of only working through consensus.
The sometimes heavy-handed approach led to some young people becoming progressively more hostile to the patrollers, and there were reports of young people hiding from the patrol or verbally and physically abusing the patrollers (Sputore, et al, 1998, p.57).
The research found some problems associated with the linkage between the patrol and the sobering up shelter, largely due to administrative difficulties. The recommendations stemming from the evaluation stressed the need to secure additional funding, improve local coordination with the police and licensees, increase patrol hours, offer better financial incentives to patrollers, improve the rapport with young people, and ensure that only those stipulated drive the patrol bus.
Wyndham Patrol was established against a similar background of concern about the safety of intoxicated people. This patrol was also found to have made a difference to the rate of detention in the police lock-up – falling from two hundred and thirty six in February 1997 to eighty seven in May 1997. The researchers found anecdotal evidence suggesting that the patrol was successful in getting people off the streets who might otherwise be detained by the police and in preventing alcohol related injuries. The police, as in Kununurra, were spending more time on other policing activities (the arrest rate did not decrease). Generally, there was a perception that the patrollers were skilled in dealing with clients, but that work was hampered by a shortage and speedy turn-over of staff as well as a shortage of safe places to take intoxicated persons (Sputore et al, 1998, pp 131-3). There have been no similar independent evaluations of the work of urban patrols in Western Australia.
There is a useful discussion of the Noongar Patrol in a recent survey of alcohol and crime prevention (Parliament of Victoria Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, 2001, p.236-238). This review focuses on the views of key players. It presents a number of the background factors and captures some of the tensions between the various interest groups. These include those of business people who want members of the Noongar patrol to be publicly funded security officers, and Noongar themselves, who see the role of the patrol as providing a support service.
Other works targeting night patrols in Western Australia include Blagg’s study on the role, actual and potential, of night patrols in the area of crisis intervention in Indigenous family violence (Blagg, 2000,a and b). Blagg concluded that patrols have a valuable contribution to make as crisis intervention tools in family violence. The research found many instances where patrols were playing this role, either in partnership with, or instead of, the police. The study outlines a number of crisis intervention strategies for different regions of Western Australia, from metropolitan Perth through to remote communities. These strategies enable Indigenous people to intervene in family violence without always using the criminal justice system and encourage the development of community-based alternatives. The strategies are similar to those operating in remote communities in the Northern Territory, and in Geraldton, Western Australia.
Patrols in Far North Queensland, known locally as Bare Foot patrols have tended to grow out of the work of Community Justice Programs. There has been no specific evaluation of this aspect of their work. Memmott describes the role of community justice initiatives as mediating between people in conflict, designing culturally appropriate punishment and preventing recidivism (Memmott et al, 2000, p.70). Memmot et al’s study identifies only three night patrol services in Queensland, at Kowanyama, Palm Island and the Management of Public Intoxication Program at Mornington Island.
The operation of Kowinyama justice group has been well researched (Chantrill, 1998), although a specific patrol function is not mentioned. An assessment by the Department of Torres Strait Islander Policy and Development (1999) does not feature patrols as a key part of this discussion of the justice group’s work.13 Reference is made to the patrols in the section relating to strategies outside the criminal justice system, such as crime prevention, designed to ‘stop people offending’ – particularly juveniles (Department of Torres Strait Islander Policy and Development 1999, p.47). The review notes two night patrols, in Townsville and Kowinyama. The Kowinyama Bare Foot patrol operates on pension nights ‘to monitor the behaviour of young people on the streets’ (Department of Torres Strait Islander Policy and Development 1999, p.51), while the Townsville Wyulburri Binbi Justice Group uses a bus to patrol the streets, supervising and assisting young Indigenous people (Department of Torres Strait Islander Policy and Development, 1999, p.51).
The emergence of patrol type services in New South Wales is inextricably bound up with perceived problems of youth crime and anti-social behaviour.
A number of the initiatives linked to the Children (Parental Responsibility) Act 1997, gained the approval of the Parliament of New South Wales Legislative Council Standing Committee on Law and Justice in its inquiry into crime prevention in NSW (Standing Committee on Law and Justice, 1999). The Act gave wide discretionary powers to police to remove children from public places where they are perceived to be ‘at risk’, as defined in s19(3) of the legislation. The Act, however, stipulates that a local council wishing to use the powers in its area must seek approval from the Attorney General (Part 3 s14(2)). Included in the criteria are a number of requirements including one to provide crime prevention or youth support initiatives and a range of linked requirements.
The Standing Committee commented that this had been ‘skilfully’ drafted to increase crime prevention rather than simply expand police powers. Any local authority wishing to have the powers must also ‘consider the needs of the community, including young people and the Aboriginal community’ (Standing Committee on Law and Justice, 1999, p.48). The demand for youth services to be involved stimulated the emergence of a number of patrol style initiatives, such as Street Beat. The Committee praised the Ballina Street Beat, in particular for the way it dealt with young people at risk. The report argued:
Street Beat workers liaise with police but use their own discretion as to which children they consider ‘at risk’ for the purposes of the Act. Increasingly the police contact Street Beat if they receive a report of disturbances involving young people rather than providing the initial intervention. The level of direct law enforcement directed against young people has declined while the crime problem, both perceived and actual, is reported by both police and citizens to have declined significantly (Standing Committee on Law and Justice, 1999, p.51).
The Committee also discussed the Moree Street Beat. This program was established by Mirray Birray Aboriginal Community. The Committee found that the powers under the Act had been used more frequently than in Ballina. Supporters of the Act pointed to a drop in crime in Moree (a phenomenon, the Committee itself viewed cautiously). The committee was anxious to stress the extent to which the Act had, in fact, reduced the ‘need for frontline law enforcement in Ballina and Moree (Standing Committee on Law and Justice, 1999, p.55). This endorsement of the work of the Ballina Street Beat, and the support of an Aboriginal worker was followed up in the committee’s second report (Standing Committee on Law and Justice, 2000). The Committee stated that the scheme had reduced youth/police contact and confrontation and concluded that:
the lesson about reducing unnecessary police/youth contact is an important factor to consider when implementing any crime prevention strategy aimed at young people (Standing Committee on Law and Justice, 2000, p.100).
The Committee noted that Kempsey had joined Ballina and Moree in developing a night service (although not within the framework of the Act), and was achieving results similar to the others in terms of reduced crime.
A report by the Aboriginal Justice Council of New South Wales was less enthusiastic about the legislation. The Aboriginal Justice Council reported that, while the Act had only been used rarely in Ballina in 2000, it was being used extensively on an informal basis – with Ballina Street Beat taking youths off the street and youths avoiding the Central Ballina area. The Aboriginal Justice Council acknowledged that Street Beat had wide community support, in its attempts to provide positive services to young people. The Council expressed concern about the way the Act was targeting youth. The Aboriginal Justice Council was ‘alarmed by the extent of the alliance between the youth service and the police’ (p.7) and detected hidden coercion behind the work of the patrol. Young people who refused to go with Street Beat would only be dealt with by the police (p.7).
The Aboriginal Justice Council concluded that Street Beat was an excellent youth service and that its presence provided a buffer between police and youth. It was less complimentary about the scheme as it operated in Moree, where the Act had been introduced against a history of racial conflict and public demands for tough action against ‘out of control young people’ (Aboriginal Justice Council 2001b, p.2). The Aboriginal Justice Council found an Aboriginal community deeply divided, struggling with issues of violence, abuse and neglect of children and alcohol dependence and where relationships between young people and adults was damaged and fractured (Aboriginal Justice Council 2001a, pp 11-12). The Aboriginal Justice Council concluded that the Act was aimed almost exclusively at Indigenous youth and that resources needed to be directed at providing advocacy and support for young people. It claimed that the Street Beat program run from Miyay Birray Youth Services only looked after ‘their own mob’. Unlike Ballina, it offered no genuine and accessible youth services.
Redfern Street Beat was evaluated by Russell (1999). The program provides a safe transport and outreach program to young people mainly from the South Sydney area. It operates late at night when no other services are working. The scheme also provides information and referral and is designed to enable young people to access services that can address their needs (Russell, 1999, p.1).
The patrols’ data base provides up-to-date information on the working of the patrol. Russell’s evaluation shows that the aims of the project have been refined over time. Its core functions, however, have remained that of ensuring the safety of its predominantly Indigenous client base and reducing their rate of entry into the criminal justice system. Russell found that the project needed to build better relationships with the police – a crucial element if the project was to develop its diversionary role - and expand its outreach focus. The evaluation was generally positive. It found that Street Beat was providing safe transportation for many young people at risk, referred many to support services, and provided systems to encourage and enable police to divert Indigenous youth from the system. The report provides data on numbers contacted during the research but could not establish how successful the patrol had been at diverting people from the criminal justice system or affecting the rate of offending.
The Aboriginal Sobriety Group has led the development of patrol services in South Australia. Called the Mobilise Assistance Patrols, these have yet to be evaluated. A recent review undertaken by the Parliament of Victoria Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, (2001), mentions their role in relation to intervention with people under the influence of alcohol in Adelaide (pp.255-267). The patrols maintain a presence in parks, streets and other public places and link in with the Salvation Army’s sobering up shelter.
While Victoria has a number of patrols in operation, very little has been written about them. A recent inquiry into issues surrounding public drunkenness undertaken by the Parliament of Victoria Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee (2001) is highly supportive of patrols and recommends that:
Where appropriate, Indigenous Community or Night-Patrols, run in conjunction with sobering-up centres, be established (Recommendation 14).
Based on its review of the Northern Territory experience the Committee also recommends a separate Indigenous patrol staffed by women’ (Recommendation 15). The committee also recommended that funding be allocated on a separate basis from that provided to any sobering-up facility.
This section provides an overview of night patrols and related services based on responses to the survey and direct consultations with night patrols. While some data could be quantified, in many cases the numbers were too small to extrapolate conclusions to wider representation.
Of the one hundred and ten patrols contacted, sixty-three responded. The highest return rate was from Western Australia (just over thirty per cent and the Northern Territory (just over thirty three per cent). These were followed by Queensland (fourteen per cent New South Wales (nine and a half per cent) South Australia (just under eight per cent) and Victoria (just over six per cent). The Western Australian response rate was close to complete, with only one scheme (Yamatji Patrol), not responding.14
Items in the survey asked patrols to identify the particular focus of their work. Examples of responses included an emphasis on drugs, alcohol, solvent abuse, truancy, graffiti, anti-social behaviour, family violence, and enforcing community by-laws. Alcohol emerged as the single biggest issue (eighty-nine per cent), followed by anti-social behaviour (eighty-two per cent), family violence (fifty-six per cent)15 and drugs (fifty-five per cent). When broken down by state and territory the data reveal some variation. Alcohol is the main issue in most states and the Northern Territory; the exceptions being New South Wales, where anti-social behaviour is the main focus of patrols, and Victoria where alcohol and anti-social behaviour have equal weight. New South Wales gave alcohol the same importance as drugs, while solvent abuse was a significant focus in Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. Family violence was a major issue for patrols in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.
Most patrols deal mainly with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, although a sizable proportion deal also with non-Indigenous people: particularly in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia. Men and women are similarly targeted by the patrols. For example, fifty-eight per cent of schemes focus on men and fifty-five per cent focus on women.16 There was a significant spread of age groups contacted. youths (13-18) and young adults (18-25) feature prominently in patrol work. New South Wales tends to deal almost exclusively with the youth population – probably reflecting the Street Beat programs’ very direct relationship with the ‘at risk’ youth issues,17 which are also a main issue in Victoria and Queensland. Children under twelve years of age were a focus of just over thirty-three per cent of patrols, although the figure is higher in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia.18 Northern Territory has the highest number of patrols targeting the over twenty-six age group because alcohol in communities is the main issue for patrols.
On a busy night, patrols may deal with fifty or more people, although the average is under forty. The Northern Territory deals with the smallest numbers, reflecting the size of the remote communities with which night patrols deal. The South Australian and Western Australian schemes tend to deal with the highest numbers on a busy night.
The survey contained two questions dealing with police contact. One asked how often police responded to a call by the patrol and the other asked how often patrols responded to calls by police.
The data reveal that the police are generally good at responding to calls for assistance and support from night patrols. In most places, the police often respond when contacted, although a number of schemes in Western Australia and South Australia reported that they only sometimes respond.
The distribution of data from this item reveals that patrols in samples from the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Victoria respond least frequently to call-outs from police. This does not necessarily mean that relations between patrols and police are poor. It is likely to be a result of the remoteness of many communities, communication difficulties, differences in the roles of police and patrols as well as the community’s capacity to resolve issues without having to involve police.
The picture presented is generally one of partnership and a degree of mutual support between police and patrols. Where there have been problems associated with slow responses to requests for support on the part of patrols or police, this may be in large part due to communication issues and a lack of capacity to respond. Shortages of police personnel in some rural and remote areas and the fact that patrols cannot usually run a full time service, mean that there will inevitably be situations where neither party is able to provide a speedy response.
Unlike private security firms, night patrols rarely market their services to businesses.19 This is reflected in the data on patrol responses to call-outs from businesses (the majority of whom, it appears, are small business premises such as shops, restaurants and licensed premises, or perhaps a community store. Sometimes patrols respond to call-outs from these businesses when Indigenous people are directly involved, but generally, responsibility for these premises rests with police or private security firms. Patrols in South Australia appear to be most receptive to calls from the community, while those in New South Wales appear to be less so. Differences in response are attributed to the way in which the patrols are constituted, the relationship established between the patrols and the local community and the expectations for support created by that relationship, and the relationship established between the patrols and the police.
There are twenty Street Patrols in Western Australia which are active in regional towns and in metropolitan Perth. A number were established as the result of concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour by Indigenous youth in the south east of the state. Other patrols especially in the north and east emerged to address concerns associated with intoxication.
The basic services offered by most patrols in regional and remote areas of Western Australia include:
Some patrols also conduct truancy patrols, transporting children to school
The patrol participates in a diversity of local crime reduction and community safety strategies. In addition to its work on the street - providing safe transport home and checking on at risk youth, it provides case work support, referral on and follow-up work with individuals and preventive work in schools. The project has its own centre where young people are offered activities, including those planned for school holidays. Moreover, the project is linked to a local crime prevention initiative aimed at breaking the cycle of juvenile crime.21
Community patrols in Western Australia deal with a diversity of agencies, although the core agency for most patrols tends to be the police. The Warburton Patrol deals exclusively with the police, while, with the exception of Noongar in Perth, the rest place the police ahead of all the agencies with whom they they deal.
Patrols also liaise with:
Noongar Patrol, for example, deals with Family and Children’s Services, various drug and alcohol services, the police, the City of Perth, the Town of Vincent, Safer WA22 Royal Perth Hospital, the Department of Indigenous Affairs and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
For most patrols, the police are the first point of contact. While the relationship between patrols and the police is usually strong, the quality of the relationship varies from place to place. In some places there have been disputes between patrols and police over a range of issues. In some cases the disputes arise from a lack of definition of roles and responsibilities. The management and operation of vehicles are often issues of concern. These can sometime result in a temporary halt to patrolling.
Differences of opinion about the purpose of the patrol has also created tensions in some localities. One patrol has been in dispute with the police and the Western Australia Drug Abuse Strategy Office over its role of the patrol in relation to intoxicated persons and the sobering up shelter. The patrol does not believe it is its responsibility to take drunken people to the shelter, while the police and the Western Australian Drug Abuse Strategy Office believe this to be a core function of a patrol.
In some instances police officers have taken an active interest in helping to develop and nurture a patrol. Yamatji and Kullarri are examples of places where this has happened.
However, Yamatji, Noongar (Perth), Wunngagutu (Kalgoorlie) and the Leonora Patrol, which once had close relationships with the police, have begun to assert their independence as distinctly community initiatives. For example, the Kalgoorlie patrol bus had was housed and driven by police officers but now, the patrol, controlled by Kalgoorlie Indigenous Housing Development, oversees the bus while continuing to work in partnership with police (Blagg and Ferrante, 1997).
The tendency of patrols to distance themselves from the police reflects evolutionary changes in the way patrols perform their roles. The patrols have become more of a community service, rather than a security measure. This evolution can be noticed in the training of personnel. Previously, members of the Noongar patrol were trained by a private security firm, now they are trained in youth work, mediation and first aid by community support groups.
A diversity of local issues prompted the establishment of patrols in Western Australia. Respondents included the following:
While Indigenous people may have their own views about the aims of patrols, their views do not always reflect those of other agencies, who may occasionally seek to ‘capture’, or ‘colonise’, these resource to fulfil a different role. There are sometimes pressures on patrols to move beyond the original aims and gaols and take on additional, or different, tasks referred to them by outside bodies.
Noongar in Perth has been under constant pressure to fulfil a policing/security service role on behalf of Northbridge business people and some elements of Safer WA. The patrol started out as a type of welfare outreach service because of concerns within the Indigenous community about young people in Northbridge becoming vulnerable to drugs, violence and involvement in the sex industry and about adults sleeping out, becoming dangerously intoxicated and being arrested by the police. Steadily the patrol has been drawn into debates about policing issues in Northbridge and is being judged by its capacity to remove Indigenous youth from the district. There are now claims being made by some sections of the Northbridge business community, the City of Perth and Safer WA, that the patrol has failed (at a task it never set itself).
Such pressures can create difficulties for patrols. They may need to balance the interests of different constituencies and agencies, all of which may seek to define the agenda for a particular patrol according to their own requirements and views concerning the nature of the problem. This tendency is exacerbated when particular groups enjoy greater access to the media and government.
Marrala, Numbud, Halls Creek and Noongar are examples of patrols which have ceased functioning. They are examples of how vulnerable patrols are to lack of funding which is often due to administrative problems and difficulties acquitting previous years’ grants. This is a perennial problem for many patrols, which operate with strictly limited administrative support. Problems for Marrala arose when the project was redefined as a justice project by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and lost funding as a result. The example of Marrala illustrates the extent to which patrols often fall between a number of potential funding areas.
Marrala itself was firmly of the view that it dealt with a diversity of community problems. The service started as the result of concerns about people being knocked down by vehicles close to the Crossing Inn, in the absence of street lighting. The patrol ceased working for a time in late 2000, early 2001, for cultural reasons linked to an accident involving the patrol vehicle.
Other reasons for patrols ceasing to function for a time included problems associated with high turn over of workers and changes in management structures. The patrol at Halls Creek ceased to operate as a result of worker turn over.
The overwhelming majority of patrols try to work in a preventive way. A number stressed that they also try to, respond to calls for assistance and look out for situations likely to become problematic. Mirriwong pointed out that, although much of their patrol work tends to be reactive, work involving the community requires the development of preventive support systems which lower the risk associated with drinking.
Since the early 1990s, patrols in Western Australia have been funded consistently by the Department of Indigenous Affairs. Many have benefited considerably from support from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and increased funding made available by the Western Australian government.
The majority of patrollers in Western Australia receive support from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. There are some significant local variations however, depending on the operational characteristics of the patrol and how it defines its core work. One patrol in Perth, with its background in Indigenous health services, pays workers from a mix of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission funding and Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health funding. Noongar in Perth pays its workers from money it receives from local councils. Outside the metropolitan area the picture is varied. Other patrols find resources from other sources and a number of patrollers are volunteers.
Geraldton Street Workers are paid from a grant by the Department of Justice, while Halls Creek funds workers through resources it receives from Department of Health. Mingga Patrol – which operates directly from the sobering up shelter – funds its workers from sobering up shelter resources.
The majority of coordinators are employed full-time. Although they do not always work full-time as patrol coordinators, a significant number have other functions, with the patrol representing only one of the coordinators’ responsibilities. The coordinator of Geraldton Street Workers, for example, runs a youth resource centre as well as the patrol. A number of coordinators are paid from a mix of Department of Indigenous Affairs and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission resources. As with the payment of workers, the source of funding for coordinators depends on a number of operational characteristics. For example, the coordinator of Marrala is paid by Ngindiling Arri Cultural Health Service, while the patrollers are paid through Community Development Employment Projects’ funding with a top up from Department of Indigenous Affairs sources. Warburton Patrol and Pakala Patrol (Hedland) were alone in being staffed by unpaid volunteers without a full- time coordinator.
There are significant variations in the age, gender and cultural characteristics of patrols.
The composition of patrols varies enormously: from two people working out of Roebourne sobering up shelter, to eighteen person working in metropolitan areas.
Women are well represented as patrol workers and, in most cases, their numbers are on a par with men, or outnumber them.
Women have often been at the forefront of initiatives to establish patrols in their communities, seeing benefit in the consensual and persuasive nature of the patrols in dealing with issues that may otherwise be dealt with through coercion and force. There may also be sensitivities regarding men’s and women’s domains at play in some regions – since women as well as men are handled and transported by patrols, a gender balance may help to avoid problems of inappropriate gender contact.
Larger, more urbanised patrols (for example Swan in Midland and Noongar in Perth) tend to have more men than women. These patrols operate principally as foot patrols and patrol areas at a distance from where the Aboriginal community lives.
The age range of patrollers’ is from eighteen to sixty. Once again, this reflects the diverse nature of the work of community patrols. The mean age would seem to be in the thirty to forty age group.
A number of patrols attempt to reflect enduring elements of Indigenous culture in their work and try to incorporate different language, ‘skin’, and/or clan groups in their patrol work. Some patrols operating in rural and remote areas, consider cultural factors to be of central importance in their work. Patrols may only enjoy wide legitimacy when they reflect the cultural diversity of a community. There may be avoidance rules at work precluding contact between certain people. The patrol may work through the cultural authority carried by certain key individuals in particular clans, language groups or family groups to deal with their own ‘mob’. At the very least people from within a particular group – whatever their status – will find it is easier to communicate with and be accepted by members of their own group.
Membership of a majority of patrols in Western Australia includes wide representation of Indigenous clans and family groups. Noongar, Yamatji and Wongi people work for the Noongar Patrol. The Marrala Patrol has representatives from the five language groups in the Fitzroy Valley (Gooniyandi, Walmajjari, Bunaba, Wangkajunga and Ngingua), on the patrol bus. Numbud has attempted to involve all eight language groups in its catchment area, and Halls Creek has Jaru, Kija and Gunian people represented. Such diversity is not as evident in other areas. Fo r example, in the case of the Tartilla, Pakala and Mingga Patrols, most people in the Pilbara are of Martu descent. A number of patrols also have non-Aboriginal people working on them. Yamatji Patrol, which has become more of a ‘community patrol’ in recent years, although it deals predominantly with Aboriginal people, is one example.
Community elders become involved in patrols in a number of different ways. In some instances (Pakala, Marrala, Tartilla, and Mirriwong, for example), they actively participate in patrols. More commonly, however, they endorse the patrol’s work through participation on management committees, councils and other bodies. Their support may be crucial in authorising patrol work, and they may become involved when disputes arise or in instances where patrols report people from their particular clan for fighting, drinking, or family violence. Elders have been called in to settle aggressive men when patrols become involved in family violence situations (Blagg, 2000 a & b).
The structure of management committees of patrols varies across the state. Committees comprise representatives from key agencies such as police, the Department of Indigenous Affairs, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, drug and alcohol services, and local Aboriginal councils. Specific arrangements, however, differ significantly and reflect the diversity of issues prompting the creation of the patrol, the diversity of agencies auspicing or housing the patrol, and the particular mix of agencies and community groups involved in planning and developing the patrol. Mingga, for example, was developed as an arm of the Roebourne sobering up shelter. Its management committee is led by the shelter’s committee in partnership with the police and other local agencies.
In other instances, management of patrols forms part of an overall responsibility for other community activities of which a patrol may be one part. In Halls Creek, for example, the Jugarni-Jutiya Alcohol Action Council Aboriginal Corporation, which came together several years ago to coordinate a range of alcohol reduction policies in the area, also manages the patrol. Similar arrangements are in evidence in other areas of the state. Kullarri in Broome is managed by the Mamabulanjin Health Service, of which it forms a part. The Geraldton Street Workers patrol is overseen by a management committee responsible for a number of youth focused facilities and programs. Noongar Patrol has two committee structures: an executive committee elected from an annual general meeting and a committee of stakeholders. The work of the Warburton patrol is overseen by the community council.
The major stakeholders identified by patrols are the communities they serve. Other agencies to which patrols owe some allegiance, some of which provide funding, are the police, education, drug and alcohol services, justice and welfare services, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
A number of patrols identify the ‘whole community’ as their stake-holders – meaning that they serve non-Indigenous people as well as Indigenous people. Kullarri, for example, stresses that its focus is on the problem of intoxication rather than on a specific race of people.
Noongar has an elaborate range of stakeholders. Its stakeholders’ committee meets regularly, and because of the sensitivities about Indigenous youth in Northbridge, Noongar spends a significant amount of time explaining its work and its effectiveness to a range of interest groups. The composition of the stakeholder committee includes the City of Perth, the Town of Vincent, Australia Post, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the Department of Indigenous Affairs, police, family and children’s services, and Safer WA.
The generic term night patrol is misleading, given the extent to which many patrols work during the day. Patrols in Western Australia work a diversity of hours, depending on resources, availability of personnel, their key focus, and community demand. A number of patrols work a day shift, others attempt to cover days, evenings and nights. Patrols attempt to cover Thursday and Friday evenings, although many find it difficult to attract workers to do shifts on or near the weekend.23
All patrols in Western Australia have their own vehicle and several patrols have two vehicles. The vehicles are seen as essential for patrol work. Vehicles are often funded through grants from the Lotteries Commission of Western Australia specifically for patrol purposes, or form part of the resources of a community council or sobering up shelter. A number of patrols identified buying, maintaining and buying fuel for vehicles as major management issues. Vehicles are often the source of jealousy within communities. Some agencies are concerned about the use made of vehicles as taxi services and use for other non-patrol purposes, although this is not widespread in Western Australia.
The majority of the patrols in Western Australia have some means of radio communication with the police. Tartilla is in the process of installing a radio phone. Two others – Mingga and Geraldton - use mobile phones.
Focusing services on specific ‘hot spots’ and ‘hot times’ has become an aspect of contemporary crime prevention practice. The proactive policing of public space requires knowledge of venues and times when trouble is most likely to occur. Night patrols, because of their intimate knowledge of their localities and their access to community information, may be well situated to undertake proactive work. This frequently allows them to manage the scene of an incident before the police arrive.
The survey has revealed that patrols are aware of sensitive areas in their localities and focus their energies in these areas. Such areas include pubs and other licensed premises, particular parks, street corners, camps, alley-ways, bus and train stations and ovals. ‘Hot times’ may include pay and pension days, weekends, sporting events, rodeos and carnivals, or before and after school. Geraldton Street Workers patrol places where young people gather, including ‘terror corner’ a spot near a pizza house that became notorious after an incident involving fights between youths several years ago.
The question of whether a particular patrol is effective depends largely on the criteria being adopted to measure effectiveness. In many cases, the criteria used are quite subjective. When asked about effectiveness, patrols provided answers which were detailed and generally free from excessive claims, showing an openness and willingness to be reflective about practice. The answers reflected the patrols’ own priorities, as defined by their management bodies. While few patrols have been subject to rigorous independent evaluation, their own local measurements of success confirms the value placed on the efforts of patrols to make a difference in their communities. Some patrols employ police arrest and detention statistics to measure effectiveness, while others rely on the extent to which they have assisted people in a variety of difficulties.
Crime prevention is notoriously difficult to measure, given the unreliability of police statistics to provide a clear index of all ‘crime’ in an area. The problems associated with such measurements increase exponentially in the Indigenous context.
Moreover, crime prevention (in the narrow sense) is not what many community patrols are about. They have functions, in terms of reducing the fear of crime, assisting those in need, and reassuring the community, that are valid aims in themselves but impossible to encapsulate within the parameters of crime statistics.
The following extracts illustrate the extent to which some patrols describe their effectiveness.
The barriers to effective working are generally to be found in issues such as lack of funding, lack of training, and problems with community support.
Only Warburton Patrol identified no hindrances. The majority identified funding as the main problem. Other concerns include:
Two patrols – Numbud (Derby) and Geraldton Street Workers - saw poor relationships with police as an obstacle. Noongar identified the expectations of some groups, seeing the Noongar Patrol as a panacea for all problems, as the most serious obstacle it faced.
Few patrols have been rigorously evaluated. In Western Australia, patrols record basic data as part of their funding requirements. Evaluations are done in-house through self-analysis and via feedback from management committees and the like. Only Mirriwong, Halls Creek and Geraldton have been, or are being, evaluated by an outside agency.
In Western Australia, only Ganah Ganah and Warburton have no contact with other patrols. Most have contact with others in their vicinity, either directly or through writing. Western Australia has had number of local forums – one in Derby in 2000 brought several patrols together.
At the forum in Derby a variety of issues emerged for discussion. Although they varied from region to region, a number of key points were reinforced. In particular the need for better funding and for better referral options were raised. For example, Kullarri state they had nowhere to take young people they picked up.
While there is consensus among patrols about issues such as referral on services, there is not agreement on every matter:
The Yamatji Patrol in Geraldton originally formed around concerns about juvenile anti-social behaviour. It was, in some senses, a ‘top down’ initiative, having formed with government agency backing. Over time, however, it has re-defined itself and has considerable grass roots support. From a focus on anti-social behaviour in the early 1990s, it has become involved in a range of issues. It routinely intervenes in family and domestic violence incidents. Moreover, it identifies a gap in advocacy services for Indigenous women in these situations. The patrol has developed its own advocacy service, funded by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, to support a family violence initiative employing Indigenous women volunteers. In family violence situations, the service assists women to take out restraining orders and advocates on their behalf with the legal system and other agencies.
There are warden schemes in operation in some communities in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. These are at Balgo, Bidyadanga, Oombulgarri, Kulumbaru, One Arm Point, Beagle Bay and Warmun, and at Jigalong in the Pilbara.24
Under the Aboriginal Communities Act 1979 attempts in the mid 1990s to make remote wardens special constables in Western Australia25 were ill conceived and did not prove successful. Advocates of increasing powers for wardens, and increasing the powers of communities to penalise offenders invoke the Communities Act, in a bid to make the schemes more successful. The possibility of success of these schemes rests with communities’ involvement in decisions made about them. Simply imposing non-Aboriginal forms of law and policing is not the solution to problems on remote communities.26
Attempts to make wardens’ schemes work led to their control being transferred from the Aboriginal Affairs Department to the police in the late 1990s. Police strategies lean towards incorporating wardens into the police service delegated as Aboriginal Police Liaison Officers. The Aboriginal Justice Council has opposed this strategy on the grounds that it could serve to disempower communities by imposing non-Indigenous practices on Indigenous communities.27
Night patrols were first developed in the Northern Territory and patrols such as Julalikari in Tennant Creek have operated for a decade or so. Recently, there have been debates in the Northern Territory about the role patrols could potentially play as Local Crime Prevention Committees, coordinated by NTsafe. There have also been debates concerning the potential role of night patrols in local diversion projects coordinated by the police. Indigenous people consulted for this review were firm in their belief that patrols need to be seen as essentially Indigenous community initiatives.28
A number of issues emerged during consultations in the Northern Territory. Indigenous people involved in patrols stressed:
The question of cultural ownership emerged in relation to changes in the management of a night patrol running in the Darwin and Palmerston areas. The project had been run by the Aboriginal and Islander Medical Support Service in conjunction with the sobering up shelter and funded through Territory Health from the Wine Cask Levy.29 The Aboriginal and Islander Medical Support Service lost the funding for the night patrol and the sobering up shelter in 2000, and responsibility was transferred to a new management committee. This occurred while a tendering process was established by the Northern Territory’s Department of Health. Senior members of the Aboriginal community expressed strong objections to the process, which ensured that control of the project would be removed from Aboriginal people and their organisations.
On a number of remote communities in the Northern Territory (Lajamanu and Ali-Curung, for example), patrols are linked to a community Law and Order Committee. The committees are involved in negotiating reciprocal agreements and protocols directly with agencies (family services, housing), and in a sense, do some of their own local coordination. Much of their effort has involved managing tensions between agencies as a means of reconciling different roles and expectations.30 There have also been occasions when night patrols have undertaken some of their own informal ‘diversionary’ work in communities to counter the impact of the Northern Territory mandatory sentencing laws and the concomitant reluctance to involve police when property offences occurred. Several patrols try to resolve problems in the community by getting offenders and victims together, ‘growling’ offenders and resolving matters ‘Yapa way’.
Funding issues are significant for night patrols. Patrols find it difficult to identify which funding body has funding responsibility and what the source of funding is. In many cases funding, through bodies such as NTsafe, is single issue funding. While it is useful for one off purchases, it does not meet the needs of Indigenous people, whose main concerns are about vehicles, salaries and infrastructure.
Bodies involved in supporting and training patrols argue that many patrols fail because of lack of support from within their communities and/or government. While Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission funding is essential in keeping many patrols operating, there are concerns that, organisationally, officials are often too remote from the actual work, and are restricted by a rigid bureaucratic system. There are complaints that an apparent reduction in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission field staff has removed an important link with communities. Further concerns are that the Community Development Employment Projects’ management structures are not sufficiently aware of the specific needs of night patrols and the issues with which they deal. There were suggestions that night patrols need to have better representation in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission at various levels.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission funding is invaluable in terms of providing a consistent funding base. Aside from support through Community Development Employment Projects, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission spent $1,746,833 on night patrol related issues in 2001 in the Northern Territory.
Territory Health Services have also been an important source of funding. The Public Behaviour Program, for example, provides the principal funding for establishing patrols and related services, with the expectation that other sources of funding will be accessed once the service is established. The program is intended to reduce the incidence of anti-social behaviour related to alcohol and other drug abuse in public places and has been developed in partnership with NTsafe. Territory Health Services support patrols through the Wine Cask Levy, which also provides funding for alcohol related issues. Many night patrols such as Tangentyere, Ali Curung, Kalano and Lajamanu, have received support thro