The Northern Territory town of Alice Springs, long depicted as the warm outback heart of Australia, has a deep and dark secret. It has the unenviable distinction of being the crime capital of Australia.

Joe Hockey, the Federal Human Services Minister, has described Alice Springs town camps as ghettos of despair, and has likened them to poverty-stricken black townships in South Africa.

And the Northern Territory Minister for Central Australia says he wouldn't be prepared to go to some areas of the town after dark.

Headlines coming out of Alice Springs reports there have been 15 murders and cases of manslaughter in the town in the past 16 months.

I was talking to a guy who just came back from Alice springs, he said that he was standing on a main road holding a bottle of wine, when he became surrounded by a group of Aboriginals, they snatched the bottle fom his hands and ran off.

Why is the crime rate so high? And whats to blame?

Any Australian town with a high aboriginal population is full of crime but because they are aboriginal they get away with it,they would slit a white mans throat as quick as look at them.I was travelling by bus a couple of years ago ,i had a three hour wait between coaches at Mt Isa the local cop came and picked me up and locked me in the police station so i would be safe.

Another time we went camping and these two aboriginal girls came up to our boyfriends and said i give you f*** for a flagon....just no class.

I've been in Alice for a few weeks too and also lived in Darwin for a couple of years. The social decay amongst the Aboriginal populations is horrific.
The real sad part is that most of the homeless drunks littering the streets are not of the local tribe. They are cast aways from remote tribes all over. So they congregate in the towns and cities like moths to a lamp.
Hopefully the Governments recent action can at the very least fix a bad problem or bring about some kind of solution.

I was in Alice about 3 weeks ago. And the abos are still getting their grog. They come out of the bush surrounding alice like ants in the mornings and stand around in mobs.
They walk around expressionless, it's very intimadating.

There are so many things wrong with this thread.

You guys need to be vaguely socially aware when you make these claims - otherwise it comes across as blatant racism.

I have visited Alice Springs and was horrified by the economic and social divide between White and Black. The white end of town had enormous fences and defence gates, while the black end had people wearing footy shirts from 15 years ago, pushing toy prams with children in them. There are some serious issues of inequality that need to be addressed. The town, was by all standards, a ghetto. The recent government actions were not working at all - I did not feel comfortable in this town.

But I accept the social and historical issues and catalysts associated with the divide between indigenous and white persons in Australia as the major cause for this situation - something that really has gotten out of hand. There needs to be effective assessments of the situation of drug abuse and crime within indigenous communities that works with the community, rather than against. All the government has done is brewed contempt.

There are a lot of things I could say here about some of the comments made,but as Aussies,I think you all know better with the Aboriginals and why they live like they do,it's got nothing to do with being an oppressed people,they are afforded every opportunity that any White Australian is.
But unlike us they get FREE education,FREE Medical,FREE housing,FREE Legals and on top of all that,they are also Paid Millions by the mining firms that mine their land,and what happens to that??we don't know because it's paid to the aboriginals and obviously someone is milking it for all it's worth.
Those of you who lived in the Territory will know ,there are some villages up there where some of the Aboriginals live and work for a living,and are just as well maintained like any suburb of Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide,because that's the way the people living there choose to live.
The ABC TV went up there many years ago,to film a village and show just how badly treated the Aboriginals are,what they didn't bargain on was they were set up by the N.T.Government,they were handed a list of all the villages and told to pick one,so they did,it turned out to be a good village,so in all ABC fairness they saw one Old Fella sitting in the dirt with his dog,and that's what they filmed and reported on,all they had to do was move their Camera 3 Degrees either way and the picture was completely different.
The reason I know that is bcause it was my Brother who handed them the list,they cried foul play after but were told to choose another village,it was a Bad choice.

The Aboriginals live the way they do,not because of anything WE do to THEM,rather than ,that's the way they choose to live and their happy to scream about it.

Or maybe the problem goes deeper:

Indigenous culture was largely nomadic. They did not count, had no intoxicants, did not have much of a social structure, nor the need for any permanent social occupation. This was not necessary within their society, which consisted of moving in migratory circles through the country.

So when white culture appeared with their intricate social class system, ideas such as 'occupations', intoxicants that their bodies had centuries to come to terms with and other such ideas - Indigenous culture was doomed.

Their culture was destroyed and in place, they were told to learn a system that had no method, reason or importance to them. It was never in their culture to have an occupation, a permanent home or most white ideas.

By the time white culture realised how the mixing of the two worlds (…1950's?) it was already too late. Indigenous culture had been destroyed, but white culture told them to return to their roots. This failed, their roots destroyed, their future completely beyond their understanding.

That's the frustration with the current situation regarding indigenous persons. Their past is destroyed, and their future is too alien for them to integrate into.

There are so many other issues, but I'm a little hungry and not so keen on writing an enormous essay.

It's hard not to sound racist when you talk about the indigionas surrounds of a town. Alice springs was supposed to be a romantic town, that sure don't fit the description.
The place is a dive. There has to be a roundup and some dispersion taken place. The situation as it is has no end date.

I live up here, and have Indig' friends. I've worked in Crisis care and housing for the Sallies here too, and have recently returned from a volunteer trip to Wadeye(Pt Keats), the most notoriously violent community up here.
So, given the above, I feel I can speak with some little authority.
Yes, the Indig do have problems, and that DOES include racism, both against, and BY them.
They are starting off a dozen miles behind others right from the start, so it's that much harder for any individual to succeed. This is a fact, like it or not.
The bottom line though is that they are their own worst enemies, they hold themselves back, for a variety of typically human reasons, NOT related to any racial or social characteristics.
They are as much victims of our attempts to help them as they are of the original invasion, but that's life. The Nation as a whole has been trying to help for several decades now, with only a little to show for it. The Intervention has been the most successful try so far, and is extremely popular among the families and communities, it's only the drunks, the local big-wigs, and the Idealists who object to it. Forget what you hear on the media, the reality here in the NT is that it IS working, slowly, and it IS popular, by and large. And that's straight from the mouths of the people living under it.
Perhaps as we progress we will finally make a real difference, there's a growing groundswell of resistance to the current crop of "leaders", because they have wasted so much money and so many opportunities, and I feel it will soon come to a head, the Old Guard are as much the problem as anything else.
JMHO.

Lets hope u are right JMHO, What i seen was an absolute disgrace, in Alice. The town life in Tennant Creek was much more civalized. They were drinking coffee and shopping the town. I was glad to get away from Alice Springs.

How big is this town and how many people populate it?

The population is 22488 with an indig ; pop of 18.7
When you walk the streets of alice you would think there was a much greater population of indig; persons there because they are all there at the same time.