The Lotus Nail Studio in Tregear in Sydney’s west was winding down just after 6pm one Saturday late last month when the three hooded figures walked in, demanding cash and brandishing a hammer.
asserted
figures → wind → hammer
Closed-circuit television shows one of the figures lunging with the hammer at the salon’s sole worker, a terrified 55-year-old woman who asked not to be named.
asserted
who → show → worker
The most disturbing aspect of the alleged crime was that the would-be attackers were aged just 11 and 12.
asserted
attackers → allege → crime
Across the city in Narellan Vale earlier that month, a group of teens and pre-teens allegedly swarmed a bottle shop, fighting staff and stealing cases of drinks.
uncertain
group → swarm → drinks
Five boys, aged between 12 and 15, were charged.
asserted
boys → age → 12
“I couldn’t believe that was happening here, and they are so young,” said Santiago Wu, whose mother owns the store.
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mother → believe → store
The two incidents are tiny pieces in a mosaic of youth crime that police and experts say is seeing younger and younger children sucked from the fringes of the criminal world into violent criminal acts.
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children → say → acts
Youth crime rates across the state are mostly either stable or trending down – with the exception of murder and some forms of assault.
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rates → trend → assault
Widespread use of encrypted phone apps and social media has allowed children to transition from misdemeanours into more serious violent criminal activity very swiftly, in some cases within weeks, experts say.
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experts → allow → weeks
The Australian Federal Police warned a federal parliamentary committee last month that “Australia is at the crossroads of a tsunami of youth crime” as online platforms and tools become more secret, sophisticated and popular.
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platforms → warn → crime
“It has certainly lowered the barrier to entry into organised crime,” says Detective acting Superintendent Jason Smith, acting head of Taskforce Falcon, the NSW Police squad charged with combating gang warfare and organised crime.
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Smith → lower → warfare
Of the 530 people arrested by Taskforce Falcon so far this year, almost 50 have been children, the youngest being 14.
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youngest → arrest → Falcon
Most are being paid peanuts.
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Most → pay → peanuts
“Call it market forces or whatever you like, but the saturation of the market with young people willing to take on these roles has resulted in a drop in the amount of money being paid,” Smith says.
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Smith → call → money
“We’ve got young people essentially throwing their life away for $500.
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people → get → 500
“The problem is that there is a never-ending supply of young people who are willing to become involved.
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who → be → people
These people are being exploited by organised crime figures living overseas because they’re cheap, and they’re expendable.”
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they → exploit → figures
Data collected by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) shows fewer young people are becoming entangled in the justice system than in recent decades.
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people → collect → decades
“Young people today are much less likely to commit crimes,” Jackie Fitzgerald, executive director of BOCSAR, says.
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Fitzgerald → commit → BOCSAR
It’s not accurate to speak in terms of a youth crime wave, despite the involvement of children in high-profile gangland hits, she says.
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she → ’ → hits
The latest figures, which cover up to June this year, paint a nuanced picture of youth crime across the state.
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which → cover → state
Central and inner south Sydney have the state’s highest youth crime rate, while the eastern suburbs have a higher youth crime rate per person than areas such as south-west Sydney and Blacktown.
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suburbs → have → Sydney
This is because the city and the east are often entertainment or social destinations for young people and accessible by public transport, and the influx of young people – a tiny proportion of whom commit crimes – skews the numbers, BOCSAR says.
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BOCSAR → commit → numbers
“The trend is steady, and if there is a tsunami of youth crime it hasn’t shown up in the numbers yet,” Alex Simpson, an associate professor of criminology at Macquarie University, says.
asserted
Simpson → be → University
Fitzgerald says average youth crime rates in western and northern NSW are higher than almost all parts of Sydney.
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rates → say → Sydney
“Sydney gets a lot of focus, but there are communities outside Sydney that are dealing with levels of victimisation and offending [that] are much higher,” she says.
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she → get → victimisation
“Many people in these communities have safety concerns that people in Sydney cannot relate to.”
asserted
people → have → Sydney
The apparent uptick in the number of violent crimes, including murder and assault, which appeared to begin just before the COVID-19 pandemic, follows a decade of relatively few violent crimes being committed by young people.
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which → include → people
“Over the last five years we’ve seen roughly 10 young people charged with murder, and that’s higher than we were seeing a decade ago,” Fitzgerald says.
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Fitzgerald → see → murder
“But if we expand our view, we can see that 20 years ago, there were many more kids being charged with murder.”
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we → expand → murder
The numbers of murders for which children are charged are small, usually fewer than a dozen a year, and therefore are barely visible in the overall crime statistics.
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children → charge → statistics
But the recent spike is concerning criminologists who are unsure whether the spate of violent crimes by children is an anomaly before a return to lower levels of violence, or something new.
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spate → concern → violence
“It is a post-COVID phenomena,” Associate Professor Garner Clancey, a criminologist at the University of Sydney, says.
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Clancey → say → Sydney
“On the back of the pandemic we’ve got a whole new landscape that’s been affected by the ‘manosphere’, kids spending more time online, kids being de-schooled, the rise of the ‘crimfluencers’.
asserted
that → get → crimfluencers
Our prevention strategies need to be recalibrated.
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strategies → need → ?
“So it’s an interesting time and there are some novel aspects.
asserted
it → ’ → ?
There’s a general world on social media [of] ‘crimfluencers’ and people who are generating content built around a gangster lifestyle online.
asserted
who → ’ → lifestyle
Clancey describes a globalised world of organised crime that has become wearily familiar to police over the past two years.
asserted
that → describe → years
The model features the big bosses who remain offshore, outside the reach of Australian law enforcement.
asserted
who → feature → enforcement
They co-ordinate crimes such as arson, theft and public-place shootings from encrypted apps, using a series of middlemen who are not connected to each other, before orders for crime jobs filter down to young people in NSW, who have no idea who they are working for.
asserted
they → co → who
…and 23 more, not listed.
The Aporia
