9.1 Introduction

Community patrols or, as they are also known, night patrols or street patrols, have been described as ‘the longest running form of Indigenous, community owned and designed harm prevention initiative in Australia’ (Blagg and Anthony 2019: 280). In this chapter, we trace the origins and evolution of community patrols, exploring along the way the mixed blessings that have come with increased government support for what in many cases started out as grass-roots, unfunded initiatives. We also describe two related initiatives: community-based warden schemes and social behaviour projects.

Porter has described community patrols succinctly as ‘locally-run justice initiatives with formal agendas that focus on improving safety within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities’ (Porter 2018: 445). This description allows for a broad range of operational practices and organisational structures, in keeping with the diversity of settings—urban, regional, rural and remote—within which patrols operate. However, Porter suggests, a number of key functions are common to most patrols, including providing transport, promoting safety, preventing and helping to resolve conflicts and reducing confrontations between police and communities. Community patrols—along with warden schemes and social behaviour projects—are instances of non-state policing, but they are not extensions of state policing, although this distinction, as we show below, is not always recognised by those who would direct patrols along certain paths.

9.2 The Earliest Warden Schemes and Patrols

The origins of community policing in Aboriginal communities are probably unrecorded, as the first initiatives emerged not as funded programs but as actions by concerned volunteers in remote and other communities. Higgins (1997) describes the formation of a ‘night duty’ patrol in the Northern Territory community of Daguragu around 1970 in Box 9.1. Daguragu had been founded in the 1960s by Gurindji leaders in the course of their historical walk-off from Wave Hill Pastoral Station that effectively precipitated the Aboriginal land rights movement. It is located 7 km from Kalkarindji, the township originally known as Wave Hill after the cattle station on which it was located. Porter, in the course of conducting fieldwork with patrols in NSW, heard anecdotal reports of community self-policing initiatives in Redfern, Sydney, in the early 1980s and in other towns in the 1990s (Porter 2018: 452).

Box 9.1 Origins of the Daguragu, NT, Night Patrol

Extract from Higgins (1997: 36–37)

The original Daguragu scheme was developed by the Tribal Council over 25 years ago. The Elders shared responsibility for ‘night duty’ patrol at the native welfare camps at Kalkaringi and Daguragu.

One of the reasons for this was to ensure proper behaviour between the different family groups who settled at Kalkaringi and Daguragu after the Wave Hill Station walk-off. The other was because the Police did not know how to deal with traditional people and tribal customs. Night duty was introduced to reconcile the Kartiya (i.e. non-Aboriginal) and the Gurindji laws. The Police were locking people up who were doing the right thing in a tribal way. There was also the situation of Police being outnumbered, so the Police would back off, creating a vacuum for mainstream policing. There were also family problems, marriage problems, etc. which caused fights.

The Elders emphasised that the NP was all about the tribal way. NPs were tribal men and could deal with tribal disputes and resolve them. The main issue was tribal law. The NPs come out of this background and know about the tribal way of settling things. However, the Elders acknowledged that drinkers “have no brains” and hence were hard to deal with.

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) inquiry into Aboriginal customary law that commenced in 1977 and reported in 1986 brought to light several examples of Aboriginal community-based policing, describing them in Box 9.2. As we show later in this chapter, many of the issues identified by ALRC in its descriptions of these early initiatives have continued to generate challenges for groups running patrols and warden schemes.

Box 9.2 Community Wardens and Other Forms of Self-Policing

Extract from Australian Law Reform Commission report Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws (ALRC Report 31), (1986: Paras 858–863)Footnote 1.

858. South Australian Wardens. Several Aboriginal communities in the north-west of South Australia (including Amata, Ernabella, Fregon, Indulkana and Mimili) and Yalata in the west of the State have for some time used a system of Aboriginal wardens. Initially 20 persons were appointed and trained by the Police and the Department of Technical and Further Education for the Pitjantjatjara area and 10 for the Yalata community. A further 30 wardens were appointed and trained in June 1985. The system is not established nor regulated by legislation. Wardens are employed and controlled by the Community Councils and carry out an internal security role. Other functions include liaison between the community and visiting police. (Emergencies apart, South Australian Police are able to visit communities only weekly.) The wardens have no official uniform but in some cases wear khaki trousers and shirts (similar to uniforms worn by South Australian police in the outback) and have made their own badges. Some communities have requested an improved status for their wardens, which they consider would come from giving them proper training, uniforms, badges and greater powers (of arrest, etc.). It has been suggested that, at least if established by local initiative, such a status might free the warden from the kin relationships which, as discussed already, create real problems in many communities. Thus a warden in uniform and on duty might come to be regarded as exempt from kin obligations. The warden system, which was an Aboriginal initiative, has been operating with some success for several years. However, the South Australian Police Force has decided to introduce a system of police aides to replace it. It has been proposed that the Aide Scheme operate for a trial period of three years in Port Augusta, Amata, Indulkana, Fregon and Ernabella. The aim of the scheme is to enable specially trained Aborigines, working within their own communities, to assist the police to provide a police service which is suitable to the community. The South Australian Customary Law Committee opposed this change, principally because of the practical difficulties in making such a system work.

…

859. Council-employed Peace Officers. Other Aboriginal communities have sought to employ a local peace officer, similar to the wardens in South Australia. The Gurindji Community Council (NT) has advocated the appointment of a member of their community, chosen and dismissable by the Council, as a local policeman. He should be a member of the Council, be given proper training and a uniform, and would have the power to arrest, and if necessary lock-up overnight, local residents who commit offences on Gurindji land. The value of training and in particular a uniform was mentioned as creating an environment whereby the nominated person would be considered exempt from kin obligations. Gurindji women considered there would be benefits in having an Aboriginal policewoman as well as a policeman. At Roper River (NT) the Council at various times has employed what are called security men to help police the community. These men, who have a uniform, are representative of the four different skin groups. There are also white police stationed at Roper River. The Lajamanu Council (Hooker Creek, NT) has also at times employed four ‘nightwatchmen’ as a supplement to the police. They are mainly older men who patrol the community each night. If offenders are found they are often dealt with summarily. The council and elders later decide if the police should be notified so that they may also pursue the matter. The development of the night patrol was a community initiative to reduce the very high level of disturbances and offending. It is apparently accepted by the members of the community. There is still support in some Aboriginal communities for nightwatchmen, especially among Aboriginal women.

860. Policing by Council Members. At Beswick Station (NT) the elected council performs a policing role. The Council relies on family leaders to help it. If trouble erupts a council member will request a member of the trouble-maker’s family to assist. Specific incidents or matters of continuing concern are raised at Council meetings and families are requested to keep their members in order. The council is happy with the way this system operates and does not see any need for police aides. Other views expressed at the Commission’s Public Hearings supported this method of policing because it prevented people from becoming resentful at a single person being given what were seen as arbitrary police powers.

861. The ‘Ten-Man Committee’. The involvement of the ‘Ten-Man Committee’ at the Strelley Community (WA) has already been described.Footnote 2 Its role can extend to picking up offenders in Port Hedland and throughout the Pilbara, with the knowledge and support of the local police: those returned to Strelley by the committee are dealt with by the community at a public meeting. According to the local police the system works successfully. Apparently a similar committee operates at Noonkanbah (in the Kimberley area of Western Australia).

862. Self-Policing in Urban Areas. A system of self-policing first began operating unofficially among Aboriginal residents of Redfern in Sydney in April 1980. Two Aboriginal men were appointed as community liaison officers by the Aboriginal Housing Company to patrol the area and assist in local law and order. As a result of lack of funds, the system lapsed after six months. It was reactivated in April 1983 as an ‘official’ system with funding provided. Initially, two community liaison officers were appointed but this was later increased to four. Their principal function was to control behaviour involving vandalism and disruptive behaviour on Housing Company property. To this end they liaised regularly with the local police and with the Police Aborigine Liaison Unit, a special unit in the New South Wales Police Force. The four liaison officers wore identifiable clothing and carried ID cards. They generally worked shifts between 7 and 2 am. From time to time the Housing Company notified its tenants in the area of particular matters which the community liaison officers would be giving special attention: for example, drinking in the streets, loud music, smashing bottles, dumping rubbish and card schools. Apparently the system worked well and there was a marked improvement in local law and order. The Housing Company has temporarily discontinued the scheme although efforts are being made to resurrect it.

863. Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Policing. Self-policing has advantages both for communities and the State and Territory police forces. Communities are able to deal with troublemakers in a more flexible manner which may be more appropriate to the circumstances, as well as more in accord with local customary laws. There may be as a result a de facto discretion to determine whether an apparent infringement of the criminal law should result in the police being called in and the matter pursued through the courts, or whether the matter can be dealt with locally. From the police viewpoint, self-policing can reduce the demands made upon them to service remote communities either with a permanent police presence or by regular visits. Police officers are understandably reluctant to live, with or without families, in remote localities. There may be no sufficient need for police in many smaller communities. Self-policing may reduce the overall demand on limited police resources, enabling a more efficient network of police services to be established. It may also, as the Redfern scheme demonstrated, be of value in urban areas. But of course it has its disadvantages, including the risk of unreliable provision of services, and the danger of partiality. Self-policing can also present real dilemmas, as the New South Wales Police pointed out. Some Aboriginal communities prefer to settle their own disputes and if police are called, their presence is resented. But, if the police are called and do not attend, there are likely to be complaints that the police are not doing their job or are discriminating against Aborigines.

The first community patrol to gain national prominence, mainly as a result of its being promoted by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCADIC) report as a model for other towns and communities, was the Julalikari Community Patrols in Tennant Creek, NT (Johnson, 1991, vol 5, Recommendation 220).

9.3 Julalikari Community Patrol

Like the initiatives described above in Box 9.2, the Julalikari Community Patrol emerged, not as a fully-fledged, funded program, but out of the voluntary commitment by members of Julalikari Council, using their own vehicles, money and other resources to patrol streets and town camps at night in order to offer a more satisfactory way of resolving disputes than the more confrontational approaches of mainstream police (Langton 1992; Curtis 1993). Julalikari Council, like Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs and Aboriginal-controlled bodies in other towns, services town camps occupied by Aboriginal people and performs functions and roles performed elsewhere by local government bodies. In 1992, the Julalikari Patrol won the inaugural Australian Violence Prevention Award by the Australian Institute of Criminology (Australian National Audit Office 2011).

In Box 9.3, David Curtis, an Aboriginal leader from Tennant Creek who was involved in establishing the Julalikari community patrol, offers a succinct account of what the patrol was in its early days—and, equally importantly—what it was not. In drawing attention to a predilection on the part of many people in the community to view patrols such as the Julalikari patrol as little more than a drunks’ taxi service, providing policing on the cheap, Curtis highlights a misunderstanding that was by no means restricted to Tennant Creek. For Julalikari, as for other patrols, the chief purpose—especially in the early days of establishing community patrols—was to draw on culturally-grounded authority rather than mainstream police powers to resolve disputes before they escalated.

Box 9.3 Julalikari Council’s Community Night Patrol

Extract from Curtis (1993: 73–76)

The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly some of the less known features of Julalikari’s night patrol program and express a note of caution to communities thinking of adopting the scheme. In making these comments, it is hoped that communities can be helped to make informed decisions and avoid failures.

Over the last couple of years Julalikari’s night patrol has gained considerable attention. Interest has been aroused by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody’s detailed examination and recommendation that the program be adopted elsewhere. It has obvious relevance both to the current debate on Aboriginal/police relations and to those seeking to improve community management of alcohol problems. There is even international interest with Council members now discussing the program in Papua New Guinea.

Julalikari Council is a town camp organisation of about 900 Aboriginal people in the remote Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek; whose total population is approximately 3,000. With reduced mining activity, the town’s economic base has contracted, enterprises have suffered, and the white population has declined. Alcohol abuse is a major problem in the community, both indoors and outside.

The night patrols have been operating since the mid-1980s. The starting date is not clear, for the community began the program without the tiers of bureaucracy and welfare assistance which would otherwise have recorded it.

The night 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 death in the town camps was to be halted. At the time there were no “Beat The Grog” campaigns, no suitable rehabilitation resources, no drive to improve community management of alcohol and little recognition that better relations between police and Aboriginal people were urgently needed.

What is The Night Patrol Program?

A senior Northern Territory police officer has provided the following description:

The Council patrol operates a roster system of volunteer persons who conduct mobile patrols of the town area and camps at night. The patrol assists in removing intoxicated persons from the streets back to their residence and camps, as well as handling minor disputes that arise in the camps. As a general rule, councillors at each camp now contact the Council patrol in the first instance, however if the matter is serious, the police are called immediately.

This commonly held view is only partly correct, and in need of some elaboration. Five main points can be made about this description.

Firstly, while the patrols are based on a roster system, there are some important parameters. It is the Julalikari elected Council that makes the weekly roster, not the paid Council administrators. The rosters are not open to anyone. Participants must be approved by the Executive. Most of the Executive regularly participate and all of them take part in the camp meetings, even the elders.

Because the rosters include Executive members, the patrols are frequently led by some of the most influential and authoritative members of the town camps. Thus the Executive have a practical and intimate knowledge of the program. In a sense, the patrol is the Council and the Council is the patrol. So while the roster formalises who is doing service at any given moment, all the Executive are eligible for call-up.

Secondly, a basic principle of the patrols is their voluntary nature. This principle is vigorously held. It is argued that one does the job because one cares for the community. If it were paid work, some might do the job with the wrong attitude and for the wrong reasons.

For Executive, voluntary patrol work may exceed thirty hours or more per week. For some on roster, it may mean a full day’s work on their normal job and then a twelve-hour night shift. This is a huge amount of effort and calls for immense dedication.

Camp leaders and Council Executive are now attempting to reduce the burden of work by encouraging younger members of the community to participate. It is hoped that not only will their participation relieve the older people but that it will give the younger ones a new perspective and show them what a pain in the neck they can be when drunk.

Thirdly, mobile patrols are often more patrol than mobile and that includes both tyre rubber and shoe leather. Patrols may consist of two women walking up and down the main street at sunset keeping an eye on some young drinkers or “rascals”, as they say in Papua New Guinea. Patrol duty may be having the vehicle parked at the sports grounds on basketball night to provide both a Council presence and a radio base for all manner of reasons.

The patrol vehicle has a much wider function than police vans. It is constantly in use. With its communications radio, it is able to inform Executive members where each member is and can collect individuals and provide transport as necessary.

Fourthly, the object of the patrol is not to “assist in removing intoxicated persons from the streets”. This is a frequent cause of misunderstanding for the police and the general public. The object is to resolve problems in town camps and special purpose leases; to settle disputes when they begin and not after they have exploded, drawing in extended families or entire tribal groups.

It is the Council’s experience that by resolving disputes at an early stage the destructive cycle of alcohol-induced “paybacks”, anger, guilt, misunderstanding and frustration can be short-circuited. By publicly discussing and resolving these tensions the Council and community are able to spend more time on building rather than defence.

Lastly, the quote suggests that “serious matters” are the province of the police and the night patrol are junior helpers. This is quite incorrect. The community does not suspend its care or concern for its members because matters are serious; quite the reverse.

Where police have been required the immediate task of the patrol is to support the police and assist them and the community communicate with each other. Their role is also to collect information and provide a council presence that will be used later in community meetings. This is a serious task that complements the serious business of the police.

Public attention has been drawn to the program’s attempts to overcome problems with police and policing, to reduce heavy-handed police surveillance and resolve conflicts in an Aboriginal way. What is less well known but equally important is the essential part community meetings play in the program and the way these meetings have come to affect the whole Council.

Community Meetings

Community meetings are held when there has been confrontation during the patrols or in the course of camp life. Camp meetings are called by the councillors and generally held on the following day. The aim of the meeting is to mediate the disputes. Outsiders are rarely permitted to attend.

The success of the patrols has strengthened and deepened the authority of the meetings. In turn the meetings have supported the patrol by promoting communication and understanding amongst a very diverse group of town campers and reaffirming the collective intolerance for unacceptable behaviour.

In the course of the meetings, the patrol’s policy, protocols and rules are constantly under examination. Thus for instance, early in the life of the program, it was found that the productive efforts of single men and women on patrol was not what was wanted and had to be stopped. More recently, on a dark night, with little moon a “serious matter” that included the police ended with patrol members in gaol. Patrol workers now wear distinctive shirts while on duty and carry an identity card with their photograph.

At these meetings, unacceptable behaviour is condemned and offenders may receive a public dressing down. There may be some machismo in being given a hard talking to by the police or local magistrate. There is none in a community meeting of peers. The importance of this process cannot be understated. In communities that suffer from a high incidence of alcohol abuse one of the first things that disappears is frank, public, non-intoxicated discussion of the problem. With this disappearance comes a deepening of the problems. Julalikari is turning this process about through its community meetings.

Community patrols such as the Julalikari Patrol generate a need to define the respective roles of, and relationships between, the Aboriginal community patrol and local police. In Tennant Creek, this was codified in a protocol negotiated by both parties and signed in August 1991. The text of the protocol is reproduced in Box 9.4.

Box 9.4 Agreement on Practices and Procedures (Protocol) Between Northern Territory Police and Julalikari Council, Tennant Creek, NT

Full text of Agreement from Northern Territory Police Service and Julalikari Council Inc (1991)

Intoxicated person

Any person seriously affected by either alcohol or a drug

Member

Means a member of the Northern Territory Police

Mesne Warrant

A warrant issued by the court where a person fails to appear to answer his/her bail

Protective custody

Apprehension under Section 128 of the Police Administration Act (intoxicated persons)

Julalikari Council

The Governing Executive Committee of the body constituted as the Julalikari Council Incorporated

Patrollers

Means persons appointed by the Julalikari Council to uphold this agreement

Warrant of Apprehension

A warrant issued by the court where a person fails to answer his/her summons

Warrant of Commitment

A warrant issued by the court after a person has failed to pay a fine

Preamble

The following agreement is intended to establish a protocol between the Julalikari Council’s Town Patrol and the Tennant Creek Police. It is not intended to provide a basis for legal rights or powers in the Night Patrol and must not be construed as giving any such rights or powers. The following provisions are to serve as a working guide only, subject to change upon mutual agreement.

Intoxicated persons

It is accepted where diversionary procedure or facilities are available persons should not be detained in Police custody for being intoxicated or held for minor offences unless that person is violent or an offence is likely to occur or continue. In cases of detention for offences, bail procedures are to be instituted as soon as possible unless the person is too intoxicated to be released.

Persons apprehended for Protective Custody under the provisions of Section 128 of the Police Administration Act and kept in the Police cells are to be released as soon as possible or as soon as that person can be placed into the care of a relative, or friend capable, in the opinion of the Police, of looking after that person.

The Barkly Regional Alcohol and Drug Abuse Advisory Group (BRADAAG) House, in Thompson Street is a special centre where intoxicated people can be taken and cared for. BRADAAG accepts intoxicated people who have been referred by the Police, Julalikari Council Patrol, church organisations and self-referrals.

When Patrollers locate an intoxicated person and cannot give that person to a friend or relative to mind, then they have the option of bringing the intoxicated person directly to the shelter. BRADAAG House holds 15 people and when it is full, any persons taken into custody must be lodged at the Police cells.

  1. 1.

    Julalikari Council will provide training for night Patrollers by negotiation with the Police, St John Ambulance and BRADAAG. Night Patrollers will receive training concerning their rights, obligations and first aid. Julalikari Council will provide Night Patrollers with a vehicle clearly identifiable by the reflector signs saying “Julalikari Night Patrol”. The Patrollers must wear shirts authorised by the Council and carry identification cards.

  2. 2.

    When any disturbance involving Aborigines arises within the camps or town areas, the Patrollers, when possible will attempt to resolve the dispute in the first instance. If the Patrollers are unable to resolve the dispute, then Police will be called and the Patrollers will assist Police in resolving the dispute. On arriving at the scene of a dispute, Police should wherever possible, consult with the Patrollers as to the circumstances and the nature of the problem. Where it is agreeable to all parties, the Northern Territory Police may leave the situation in the care of the Night Patrol.

  3. 3.

    Following the Police intervention, the Police will, if possible, consult with the Patrollers as to the most appropriate action to take in the circumstances. The Police should give consideration to allowing the Patrollers to relocate persons involved if the Patrollers make such a request. Where necessary, Police will take the persons into Protective Custody and convey them to BRADAAG House. Persons will only be placed in the Police Cells as a last resort. Where Police and Patrollers are unable to agree on what action should be taken at the time, then the decision of the Police Officer will apply.

  4. 4.

    In circumstances where Police take action and the Council is not happy with that action or, Patrollers take action and Police are not happy with that action, a meeting will be held at the earliest opportunity between the Station Sergeant, No 3 Division, Tennant Creek Police Station and a nominated member of the Julalikari Council to resolve the dispute.

  5. 5.

    If more immediate action is required, it shall be pursued jointly by the Night Patrol Coordinator and the Senior Police Officer on duty.

  6. 6.

    It is agreed that intoxicated persons who, in the opinion of the Patrollers and Police, are violent or likely to be violent or likely to continue to re-offend should be placed in Police Custody until sober rather than released to family or Council members.

  7. 7.

    The Julalikari Council agrees that it will have community meetings to encourage all Aboriginal town campers to attempt to contact the Patrollers in the first instance when the Night Patrol is operating. If the Patrollers are unable to be contacted or the matter is urgent or serious, then the Police will be called. Police request that they be able to contact persons designated by Julalikari Council at each camp who can be called upon in the event of trouble at that camp.

  8. 8.

    Police will continue, where workload permits, to conduct mobile patrols of all the town camps. This will be to keep the peace and for the protection of persons living in the camps.

  9. 9.

    It is also agreed that the Patrollers, when possible, will try to assist the Police to keep the peace when they have time to meet such requests by talking to the people and try to sort out any arguments or differences. However, when the Police decide that a person should be taken into custody or arrested, then the Patrollers will assist by making the arrest as trouble free as possible.

  10. 10.

    Where Aboriginal persons have warrants issued for their arrest, then the following arrangements will apply:

    1. (a)

      If the warrant is a Mesne Warrant or Warrant of Apprehension, then the warrant will be executed and the person placed before a Magistrate as soon as possible.

    2. (b)

      If the warrant is a Warrant of Commitment issued for the non-payment of fines, then that person can pay the money or will be arrested and assessed for a Community Service Order at the first opportunity.

    3. (c)

      If the warrant is a Warrant of Commitment for forfeited bail or compensation and the person is unable to pay the amount, they will be taken into custody.

  11. 11.

    Any person in Police custody who exhibits signs of mental or physical distress, including alcohol or drug withdrawal symptoms, or is unconscious will be taken to the Tennant Creek Hospital.

  12. 12.

    If any person is unconscious or exhibits signs of distress or other symptoms which makes a member or Patroller become concerned about that person’s welfare, that person is to be taken immediately to the hospital for assessment.

  13. 13.

    Wherever possible, Aboriginal persons arrested will be placed in multi-prisoner cells, preferably with another Aboriginal person or persons, unless there is an identified danger or disruption to others by placing them together.

  14. 14.

    Patrollers and Police agree to work together and assist each other wherever possible. If disputes or misunderstandings occur at any time, then meetings will be called to resolve those problems, as soon as possible as per the provisions of paragraphs 4 and 5.

  15. 15.

    This agreement will be reviewed by all parties at meetings after having been in operation for a period of three months, in the first instance and six months thereafter or as required by either party.

Julalikari Council’s patrol rapidly became a model for emulation, initially in the NT, later in other parts of Australia. In Alice Springs, the Tangentyere Council—a body serving a similar role to that of Julalikari Council in Tennant Creek—established a night patrol in December 1990 (Langton 1992; Tangentyere Council Patrollers with Catriona Elek 2007). Like the Julalikari patrol, the Tangentyere patrol was begun by volunteers with no external funding, and as in Tennant Creek, those involved saw their role as one of preventing disputes from escalating rather than reacting to offences (Tangentyere Council Patrollers with Catriona Elek 2007). In 1991, the Tangentyere patrol secured funding, and over the years that followed evolved into a larger, more complex organisation than the ‘lean’ outfit described by Curtis in Box 9.3. In 2003, the Tangentyere Night Patrol was selected as an example of ‘best practice’ in Aboriginal alcohol and other drug programs (Strempel et al. 2004). By this time, it operated between 5 pm and 1 am on five nights a week (from Tuesday to Saturday), with a team of seven patrollers, two referral officers, a database operator and two four-wheel drive vehicles. Patrollers attended weekly training sessions designed to enhance their skills in first aid, computing, legal issues and protocols for interacting with clients, police and other agencies (Strempel et al. 2004: 12). The patrol had also developed collaborative relationships with the sobering-up shelter, police, Alice Springs Town Council, St John’s Ambulance, Alice Springs Women’s Shelter, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress and other services.

Both the Julalikari and Tangentyere patrols continue to operate today.

9.4 Patrols in Remote Communities

Both of the patrols described above were designed for regional towns. In remote communities, the resources available and the nature of alcohol problems often differed from those in towns, but here too communities began forming night or community patrols at around the same time. In April 1991 the first women’s night patrol was established in the Central Australian community of Yuendumu, 293 km northeast of Alice Springs. According to Anne Mosey, who was employed at the time as Coordinator of the Yuendumu Women’s Centre, the patrol was created in response to a series of five alcohol-related deaths in the community (Mosey 1994). Prior to these events, according to Mosey, women had not been involved in addressing alcohol problems, seeing them as ‘whitefella’ or men’s business. The Yuendumu Women’s Patrol initially consisted of five women selected from each of four camps in the community (Mosey 1994).

By 1994, thirteen remote communities in Central Australia had started their own night patrols, most though not all of them run by women (Mosey 1994). In a review prepared for the Alice Springs Drug and Alcohol Services Association (DASA), Mosey has described how patrols worked in different ways according to local conditions. In some, including Yuendumu, patrollers walked around the community at night with torches and sticks. If they saw people bringing in alcohol or drunkenly fighting, they would ask them to leave or drink quietly, or they would notify the police. Other patrols drove around the community using their own or council vehicles. Most of the patrols in the early years received no funding (Mosey 1994). In Box 9.5, taken from the DASA review, Mosey describes her experience working with community groups in helping to set up night patrols. Her approach, it should be noted, is markedly different from what too often passes for ‘consultation’ by government officers with their policy agendas for Aboriginal communities. Mosey also describes the obstacles and disappointments that are likely to be met along the way as a patrol grows into an institutionalised part of the community. She also lists conditions that she considers to be conducive to setting up a successful patrol.

Box 9.5 Establishing a Remote Area Night Patrols

Extract from Mosey (1994: 11–19).

How does a night patrol begin?

The process I have used is an invitation-led, community based-model.

It is better to wait for an invitation from a community rather than approach them. It is also important to make sure that the request does come from some members of the Aboriginal community and not from a concerned administrator. Several communities that have had severe problems with alcohol abuse have not wanted to start a night patrol or have chosen to after some years of problems (e.g. Nyirrpi). While a night patrol can seem like the cure for all ills, it will only work within a committed community.

My methodology has been to visit the community for several days, once I have been invited. I talk to them about the different formats worked out by other communities, then leave them to decide if they do want to form a patrol (there may be several months between the first and later meetings). If they decide to, then I return, and we discuss what kind of format they think is best suited to them, taking into account factors such as numbers of men and women, distance from the nearest police, present levels of drinking, presence of a police aide, etc.

I contact the council, the clinic and the nearest police to inform them of the community’s decision if they are not already aware. If possible they should be at the early meetings. I role-play different situations so that the community are able to plan a strategy for each. If possible, members of established night patrols are at the early meetings to work through strategies with the community.

Once the community has decided to form a night patrol and planned a strategy, the police are involved so that they can suggest other aspects and can work with the community’s plan as much as possible. This is essential so that both police and night patrol have ‘ownership’ of the strategy and avoid conflicts of interest.

Stages of growth

These are not set in concrete, and do not all apply. They are not to be read as definite but are based upon my observation of the longer-established night patrols. As all communities differ greatly, some may skip stages.

1st Stage (1–3 months)

Enthusiasm and fear from the members of the night patrol. Afraid of repercussions from male members of their families, but also keen to work together to deal with problems. Less fear if senior men are involved at the beginning.

Apprehensive of police support. Needs several meetings with local police and/or regional superintendent to plan procedures of call-outs, apprehension without arrest, etc. Important to plan this together, not ad hoc.

Usually large numbers of police call-outs for 1st 3–6 months as community and night patrol test out level of police support. Police overtime payouts increase, then decrease as community realise that police are being supportive to night patrol members.

Tends to be initially women that form the first night patrol, with many senior women, (aged 55–70), except in communities with low numbers of older women.

2nd Stage (3–6 months)

Numbers involved in night patrol drop away as members get tired or are undermined by the community.

Needs to be financial support for a few members who are keenest, and/or the main drivers, otherwise they drift into other jobs.

Most difficult time for night patrol. Problems recur and seem insurmountable.

Police call-outs drop right back as community adjusts to the continued presence of the night patrol by bringing in less grog or by drinking away from community.

The night patrol may collapse at this stage, due to the above pressures. There needs to be continued support from their council, NT Police, and organisations such as ADRES and Tangentyere Council.Footnote 3 However, they will usually revive again after a gap of some weeks or months.

Senior women recruit younger men as workers (sons/nephews/grandsons).

3rd Stage (6 months onwards)

Night patrol is recognised by all community members as an established presence. It is not likely to stop now, or if it has some lapses, will re-generate itself as necessary.

Will put forward delegates to go to speak at other communities, conferences, etc. to the media.

Will liaise easily and comfortably with local and senior police, and Correctional Services officers, and will initiate meetings if problems arise.

Will be interested in participating in community court.

Take an active and thoughtful role in law and order issues with both Aboriginal and European law. Initiate meetings within community on law and order issues.

Interest in further training for night patrol members.

More men become involved, as senior women stop work.

It is important for night patrol members to remember their initial objectives at this stage. While away from their community participation in meetings is one of the ways of maintaining patroller’s interest, they need to balance this with their commitment to the actual work on the community.

…

What conditions are necessary for the formation of a night patrol?

The conditions below are not all essential and are based on personal observation. Patrols have started with much less than the requirements below.

The conditions that appear to be necessary for the initiation of a successful night patrol are

  1. 1.

    A community size of over 100 people. Smaller communities than this will involve almost every family grouping in the formation of a night patrol. Half the group would be policing the other half.

  2. 2.

    There needs to be a large group initially formed with a minimum of ten people. A practical size is ten-twenty people.

    1. a.

      The greatest obstacle is that the work is tiring and unrewarding, particularly for older people who are usually asleep at 8 or 9 at night and are required to stay awake till 3 or 4 am. People get sick, need to attend to family or ceremonial business, or are invited to travel to perform dances or attend meetings. There needs to be sufficient back-up numbers to maintain the night patrol when these people are absent or drop out.

    2. b.

      The other reason is that for night patrol to operate effectively, it needs to have full community approval, i.e. that there be representatives of each family grouping in its structure. Without this there is the situation of one family grouping disciplining other families, with the resultant friction in the community.

  3. 3.

    There needs to be several senior men or women involved initially even if these people delegate authority at a later date to younger people. It is the more senior members of the community, particularly those with strong ceremonial authority as well, that are most able to be respected as members of a night patrol.

    They are also, in the case of the women, usually widows and are not thus able to be threatened by husbands.

    It is very important that it is the senior (grandmothers) women and men that are active in the night patrol, although of course they may recruit younger men and women themselves. Night patrols tend to have a short life if they are only composed of younger people (under 40). (Younger women have family responsibilities, are in demand for other jobs, and are under more pressure from other family members, who may be angry or jealous of their involvement).

    However it is often the younger members of the community (30–50 year olds) that are in demand as paid representatives of the community, and yet they are the ones that do not yet have appropriate levels of ceremonial knowledge to be authorised to speak for all others. The Europeans system serves to promote those who are “educated”, i.e. younger.

  4. 4.

    Patrol members need to be non-drinkers if possible. This is not totally essential but is certainly preferable, as obviously the drinkers are not likely to respect the authority of another drinker.

    However, if the person respects the Restricted Area boundaries or only drinks in Alice Springs it is possible that other drinkers may respect their authority.

    Kintore and Yuendumu have had drinkers as part of their patrol. The problem it can cause is that the drinking night patrollers will be much more lenient on other drinkers and will not take their role seriously. It can also cause fighting between members of the patrol, reducing the cohesion and effectiveness of the patrol.

  5. 5.

    The initial meeting in the community needs to be large with as many men and women of younger and older age groups as possible. It is very important that the idea of the patrol is not just dreamt up by a few concerned people, and that it has wide cross-family and community support. It may take a series of meetings to achieve this, with the idea of the patrol gradually gathering momentum and acceptance. Otherwise, there is the situation of a few concerned individuals (often the same ones as for several other issues) adopting the moral high ground against the rest of the community. Unless the patrol is seen as a positive move, one protecting and ‘looking after’ family members from the worst effects of alcohol abuse, it will not be maintained for long.

  6. 6.

    There needs to be involvement and consultation with all relevant bodies. The community council, the clinic and local police. Again, as above the intention is to gather wide community support.

  7. 7.

    There needs to be an understanding or strategy worked out with the local police. Both the night patrol and police need to be clear about each other’s area of control before the night patrol starts.

    …

    There needs to be an attitude of generosity and flexibility on the part of the local police, as the requirements of the night patrol members do not always fit conveniently into police schedules, and perhaps a preparedness to do “that little bit extra” for the first couple of months. Of course, the night patrol members also need educating by the police as to the legal and practical parameters of their role. This may require several meetings to work out a set of procedures that is agreed upon by both the members of the night patrol and the local police unit. It is important that new or temporary police officers also be kept informed of the existence, names and procedures of the night patrol, particularly if the patrol staff do not have identifiable uniforms.

  8. 8.

    There needs to be a supportive administrative person on the community. The night patrol can flounder without the support of an enthusiastic administrator. This person can be a teacher, a clinic sister or council clerk, but needs to be prepared to assist with submissions, help with locating access to vehicles if wanted, and provide general interest and enthusiasm for the night patrol. Night patrols can of course operate without this but may be less effective.

    Community employees tend to be already over-extended, and are understandably reluctant to take on extra work, particularly something which may put them into dispute with senior (grog-running) men in the community or with the police.

    However in the long term the presence of an effective night patrol is of widespread benefit to the whole community, and may help that support person in their job.

  9. 9.

    Ideally, there would be a non-drinking council chairman, or at least some non-drinkers on the community council. These councillors could provide support for a night patrol. However in many communities it is the council members that are among the worst drinkers.

Brady expands on some of the points raised in the above extract with a useful discussion of practical issues relating to radios, vehicles and such like (Brady 2012: 164–167).

9.5 Extension, Expansion—and Evaluation

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the number of community patrols expanded rapidly in rural, remote and urban settings. Blagg and Valuri (2004b) identified more than 100 patrols as operative in 2001–02. A review based on data collected from 63 patrols in WA, Queensland, NT, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania found that alcohol was the most frequently cited issue that patrols addressed, followed by anti-social behaviour, family violence and drugs (Blagg and Valuri 2002). The core functions of patrols were found to be providing safe transportation, diversion from contact with the criminal justice system and intervening to prevent disorder in communities. While many patrols focused on community safety, others—notably in urban programs in southern Queensland and NSW—grew out of youth outreach programs and focused on Indigenous youth (Blagg and Valuri 2002).

Little quantitative evidence is available regarding the impact of patrols on arrest rates, alcohol misuse, domestic violence or other indicators. Higgins, who evaluated seven night patrols and two community warden schemes in the NT in 1996, reported evidence of patrols in the communities of Ngukurr and Yirrkala, and the Tangentyere and Julalikari patrols in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek respectively, contributing to reductions in alcohol-related offences, health worker call-outs and community disturbances (Higgins 1997).

Sputore et al. (2000) evaluated the Halls Creek Night Patrol and Alcohol Centre, located in the East Kimberley, WA, at the request of Jungarni-Jitaya Alcohol Action Council Aboriginal Corporation, which managed both services. The Patrol had been established in 1994 in response to recommendations of the RCADIC, followed soon afterwards by the Alcohol Centre, which offered education and non-residential counselling services (Sputore et al. 2000). Formation of the Night Patrol and Alcohol Centre were preceded by the establishment of a Sobering-up Shelter in September 1992 and, in November of the same year, the introduction of restrictions on take-away liquor sales (Sputore et al. 2000).

The evaluation included a quantitative analysis of trends in alcohol-related arrests and alcohol-caused mortality and morbidity at Halls Creek Hospital by Aboriginality for the period 1990–1998. The analysis examined the impact of measures in two phases, the first being establishment of the Sobering-up Shelter and restrictions on take-away sales, the second being commencement of the Night Patrol and the Alcohol Centre. A time series analysis found that none of the measures had a statistically significant effect on the indicators of alcohol-related harm. Qualitative data gathered in interviews and discussions, however, revealed that the Night Patrol was well regarded and believed to have contributed to reducing alcohol-related violence. It was also reported to have a good working relationship with police and to be well managed (Sputore et al. 2000).

In a more recent review of evidence, Blagg and Anthony (2019) conclude that, where patrols operate within a strong community governance framework, they have been shown to reduce admissions to police lock-ups, youth crime, alcohol-related crime and protective custody apprehensions. They are also widely supported within communities as community safety initiatives.

On the other side of the ledger, reviews have also identified challenges and chronic problems confronting community patrols. One of the most widespread is the presence of competing expectations about the role of patrols. Since their beginnings—as the 1993 paper by Curtis in Box 9.3 testifies—patrols have faced pressures to provide a ‘street cleaning’ or ‘drunks taxi’ service or play a police ‘eyes and ears’ role, thereby providing policing on the cheap. When patrols decline to define their role in the way demanded by funding bodies, police and/or other government agencies, they sometimes face defunding or other restrictions. Some patrols do become ‘taxi’ services. According to Memmott et al., in 2000 a night patrol operating in Darwin was neither strengthening community control nor helping to resolve disputes, but rather transporting people to the sobering-up shelter (Memmott et al. 2003: 14); it was said to have subsequently been modified. As Curtis, Blagg and others have argued, patrols are not an extension of police powers but rather an expression of a commitment of care for the community’s own people, grounded in intervention and mediation by respected members of the community using culturally sanctioned procedures (Blagg 2003; Curtis 1993).

One example of a long-running, urban community patrol that has had to manage conflicting expectations and other challenges over the years is the Nyoongar Patrol Outreach Service in Perth, WA.

9.6 Patrolling Cities: The Nyoongar Patrol Outreach Service

The patrol was originally set up in 1998 as a volunteer-managed service conducting three patrols a week in the inner-Perth suburb of Northbridge in response to high numbers of Aboriginal children on the streets at night and high levels of involvement with the law and justice system. It has since grown into what a 2012 review described as ‘an established leadership position within the human services sector in Perth’ (John Scougall Consulting Services 2012: 20). Today, the Nyoongar Patrol Service (NPS) conducts day patrols and night patrols in the suburban areas of Vincent, Fremantle and Midland as well as Northbridge, and offers seven kinds of service:

  • conflict mediation to defuse situations;

  • street level assistance to homeless Aboriginal people;

  • youth support and child protection;

  • immediate street level health and wellbeing services;

  • employment and training of Aboriginal people and

  • policy advocacy.

From the outset, Nyoongar Patrol saw its role as working in concert with other bodies to address issues faced by young and homeless Aboriginal people in the area, including anti-social behaviour but also including their risk of exposure to violence, drugs and involvement in the sex industry. It was primarily an outreach rather than a security program (John Scougall Consulting Services 2012). Other stakeholders, however, had other ideas. Media attention in the early years focused solely on the Aboriginal juvenile crime ‘problem’, which the Nyoongar Patrol was expected to solve by removing young Aboriginal people from the streets (Blagg and Valuri 2004b). Local retailers blamed Aboriginal people for a decline in patronage, overlooking other factors such as the area’s sleazy reputation as a home to sex shops, brothels, drug users and drunken (non-Aboriginal) youths spilling out of local bars and clubs. In 2002 the Nyoongar Patrol won endorsement from a 2002 State Government inquiry into Northbridge as well as from a visiting Victorian parliamentary inquiry, but the Northbridge Retailers Association, the City of Perth and the state’s peak crime prevention body—Safer WA—were all dissatisfied with Nyoongar’s approach (Blagg and Valuri 2004b) and in 2005 the City of Perth ceased funding support (John Scougall Consulting Services 2012).

In the same year, Nyoongar renamed its service as an outreach service to clarify its function. Since then, it has attracted funding from other sources, including the Cities of Vincent and Fremantle—in and near Perth—and multiple governmental bodies as well as the corporate sector. An independent evaluation of the Nyoongar Patrol published in 2012 identified the achievements of the service in nine domains:

  • mediating disputes: In 2009–10 the NPS defused a total of 516 incidents on the streets in Perth, and in 2010–11, another 337 incidents. In 2010–11, the main types of disputes involved were verbal (166), feuding (77), physical (53), health (35) and administration of first aid (5) (John Scougall Consulting Services 2012: 25);

  • expanding the range of patrols to cover seven areas in metropolitan Perth;

  • attracting increased funding from multiple sources, from corporate as well as government sectors;

  • engaging at street level with vulnerable Aboriginal people (recording an average of 297 contacts per week in 2010–11);

  • improving linkages with other services;

  • implementing sound and stable governance and management;

  • improving relations with the business community;

  • creating employment and professional development opportunities for Aboriginal people and

  • advocating policies.

The evaluation also identified five ongoing challenges:

  • unrealistic expectations of the role and capacity of the service, including among some Aboriginal people who expect the patrol to provide a taxi service;

  • inadequate shelter facilities for homeless people;

  • the absence of an adequate youth policy framework in Perth;

  • inadequate information sharing with other agencies and

  • excessive access to alcohol in the area (John Scougall Consulting Services 2012).

The evaluation of the Nyoongar Patrol is one of the few independent evaluations that have been conducted of Aboriginal patrols. It was commissioned by the patrol service itself and funded jointly by the NPS and the WA Law Society. As an exercise, the evaluation probably holds lessons for other similar patrols. For example, the evaluator noted that, although the service was required to report regularly with respect to performance indicators set by the funding body—the WA Department of Indigenous Affairs (as it was then known)—it had no performance indicators of its own against which to measure progress with respect to its own objectives. The first recommendation in the evaluation report was that such indicators be identified and adopted (John Scougall Consulting Services 2012). The evaluation drew on five sources of data, listed in Box 9.6.

Box 9.6 Evaluating a Night Patrol Service

Extract from John Scougall Consulting Services (2012: 61)

Five kinds of data have been collected, analysed and brought together in this study to inform findings:

  • Focus group meetings

    • NPS board

    • NPS staff

    • External Stakeholders.

  • Surveys providing information about stakeholder perceptions of the service.

    • Internal NPS survey

    • government stakeholders

    • not-for-profit organisations

    • business community.

  • Document review of information and reports held by NPS extending back over the life span of the organisation, e.g. program information, plans, monitoring data, progress reports, review reports, financial reports and some academic literature.

  • Submissions in the form of invited written comments from key stakeholder organisations addressing the terms of reference.

  • A brief literature review identifying recognised ‘best practice’ in this field.

The issue of accountability to funding and other bodies presents ongoing challenges for services that aim to prevent rather than react to incidents: a crime prevented is by definition an event that does not appear in statistical datasets.

9.7 Patrols and Policing in NSW

Porter (2016, 2018) has reported findings from an observational study in which she spent time with three night patrols in NSW, one in Redfern/Waterloo in inner-city Sydney, one in Bourke, a small town in far-western NSW and one in Dubbo, a provincial city in mid-western NSW. Her observations were also informed by earlier studies of other patrols in NSW. As noted earlier, community patrols in NSW have tended to focus on the safety and wellbeing of young people. Each of the three patrols in this study, she reported, was an expression of local Aboriginal control, exercised through a variety of bodies such as men’s groups or women’s groups, and through a variety of governance structures. In all instances, however, the need for community ownership was regarded as of primary importance:

When asked ‘what are the essential ingredients of a successfully run night patrol?’, the term ‘community’ (in the sense of the local Aboriginal community), was the single most common response by patrol workers, residents, and management staff (Porter 2018: 456).

The patrols operated independently of state police, although often had arrangements in place to ensure police involvement in violent incidents, and in some instances, local police attended meetings of the patrol management committee (Porter 2016).

Porter identified four main activities as characterising everyday operations. The first was transporting young people from public places to home or an alternative safe place. The second involved building mentoring relationships with young people, and the third, caring for kids—looking out for kids in trouble and, when appropriate, engaging with them about their issues and referring them to available support services. The fourth activity Porter described as ‘information sharing’ which might on occasion involve making referrals on behalf of young people to another agency (Porter 2016). All of these activities, Porter suggested, were grounded in patrollers’ own local networks and relationships. Unlike police, patrollers did not have formal authority to order young people to comply with directions.

Porter even questions whether it is appropriate to use the term ‘policing’ to describe the activities of patrollers, particularly in light of the fact that patrollers themselves explicitly rejected this term as a description of their roles. Moreover, the focus of patrollers’ activity was not the maintenance of order but rather the safety and wellbeing of young people. Perhaps, she suggests, the term ‘policing’ in an Indigenous context is inextricably bound up with its colonising connotations as an activity imposed on Indigenous people rather than conducted by them. Others have suggested that, as grass-roots instances of self-determination, patrols such as these may contribute to decolonising policing practices (Blagg 2016; Blagg and Anthony 2014, 2019; Blagg and Valuri 2004a; Cunneen 2001; Porter 2016, 2018).

9.8 ‘The Intervention’ in 2007

The 2007 ‘Intervention’ by the Howard Coalition government—or, to give it its official title, the Northern Territory National Emergency Response (NTER)—radically altered the landscape in which community patrols operated, especially but not only in the NT. This was partly a direct result of some of the measures entailed in the NTER, and partly because, coincidentally, the measures were introduced at around the same time as the NT Government began rolling out a reform of local government across the NT, under which community councils were abolished and their functions absorbed into a smaller number of higher level bodies initially called shire councils, later renamed as regional councils. Up until this time, community patrols in remote communities were either run by community councils or operated with support from them. The local government reforms removed this level of community administrative capacity and accountability, while new alcohol restrictions imposed unilaterally under the NTER over-ruled existing alcohol control provisions negotiated between communities and the NT Liquor Commission. Although the NTER and the local government reforms were separate policies emanating from different levels of government, for many people in communities they were experienced together as yet another instance of disempowerment at the hands of ‘the government’ (d’Abbs et al. 2019).

The NTER covered 73 remote communities in the NT. At the time, community patrols operated in 23 of these as well as in the towns of Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek (Australian National Audit Office 2011). Under the NTER, the Commonwealth Government redefined patrols as a core component of a new community safety strategy and expanded the program to cover all 73 communities. This necessitated the establishment of new patrols in 50 communities—all within a timeframe of ten months (Australian National Audit Office 2011). Responsibility for implementing the expanded program was vested in the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department (AGD), which adopted a single ‘hub and spokes’ service delivery model, under which all remote community patrols—new as well as existing—were to be managed by the newly established shire councils (Australian National Audit Office 2011). A review of AGD’s performance in implementing the expanded patrol program found that, while the short time-frame and magnitude of the task probably necessitated a single service delivery model, there was little consultation or engagement with communities in the process, with a result that community priorities were given inadequate attention and community ownership declined (Australian National Audit Office 2011).

One observer who was uniquely placed to assess the impact of these changes was Jennifer Turner-Walker, who served as Remote Area Night Patrol Coordinator for Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs for nine years. In an unpublished thesis completed in 2010, Turner-Walker describes the operations of patrols in central Australian communities in the years preceding the NTER and the subsequent changes under the combined impact of the NTER and the local government reforms (Turner-Walker 2012). Many of the activities in which patrollers engaged in preventing violence and mediating disputes, she argues, were largely invisible to governmental and other non-Aboriginal observers:

To see a group of women sitting under a tree watching teenage girls play basketball looks like a peaceful scene of family relaxation. However, what is unseen is that the women under the tree are the aunties and grandmothers of the girls playing basketball, and that they are there to stop a jealous fight they know is occurring between two of the girls escalating to violence or turning into a family fight. Culturally specific forms of violence such as jealous fights have the potential to draw in much larger groups of family to support the disputants, and can continue to do damage to people and families for decades (Turner-Walker 2012: 18).

The NTER brought with it significantly increased funding to patrols in the NT, together with more resources for policing, community courts and other sources. But it also, according to Turner-Walker, undermined Aboriginal community ownership. Prior to the NTER, patrols had relied on the active engagement of community Elders, Traditional Owners and key family members. Subsequently, patrols were transformed into what Turner-Walker describes as ‘a non-Aboriginal service model that prioritises administrative expedience over service delivery, and removes the basis of the patrols’ legitimacy and effectiveness’ (Turner-Walker 2012: 13). Patrols were required to reduce the range of their activities and focus on ‘core business’; locally developed training programs were displaced by top-down programs; funds were expended not to meet the requirements of patrols, but of government budgetary cycles (Turner-Walker 2012). Blagg and Anthony (2014) describe an incident that illustrates the unintended effects of such changes, when a young man in one remote community was reported lost in the bush.

The men’s night patrol was prevented from searching for him because it was “off community”—and government funding prevented patrols from travelling off community. The patrol leader, a local Elder in a kin relationship with the young man, lost the respect of the boy’s family and much of his authority

9.9 Warden Schemes and Social Behaviour Projects

While community patrols remain the most prominent expression of community policing in Aboriginal communities in Australia, they are not the only ones. Some of the earliest community policing initiatives, as the descriptions in Box 9.2 above attest, involved appointing community wardens, either in partnership with night patrols or as an alternative to them. Higgins, who evaluated two warden schemes in the NT in 1996, concluded that often there was no clear distinction in roles and responsibilities between wardens and patrols (Higgins 1997). In Alice Springs, a warden scheme was established several years after the night patrol, initially in the form of a top-down, government-imposed measure, but later brought under the control of Tangentyere Council, which developed it as a complementary service to the night patrol (Memmott et al. 2003: 14–15). While the patrol concentrated on preventing conflicts and disputes from escalating, wardens focused on working in a compassionate manner with itinerant visitors and campers (Higgins 1997). Strempel et al. (2004: 17) described the Tangentyere wardens scheme as an early morning vehicular patrol designed to reduce illegal camping in the Todd River bed and elsewhere, and to help Aboriginal people who had become stranded in town return to their communities.

Another innovative program designed to strengthen Aboriginal social control over drinkers was the Mwerre Anetyeke Mparntwele (Sitting Down Good) Project, also known as the Social Behaviour Project (Memmott 1992). The program was developed by Tangentyere Council in the early 1990s and aimed to reduce binge-drinking and the conflict and violence associated with it by fostering more appropriate social norms, rules and behaviour through educational programs and strengthening Aboriginal law and authority. The program targeted three groups of people:

  • Residents of the 19 established town camps in Alice Springs;

  • Permanent and itinerant members of informal camps in the Todd River and Charles Creek in Alice Springs and

  • Aboriginal people from outlying communities in Central Australia, who used Alice Springs as their regional centre (Memmott 1992).

The program had both pro-active and re-active components. The former involved promoting norms, values and conduct conducive to social cohesion; the latter, managing and mediating conflicts, sometimes in cooperation with the Tangentyere Night Patrol, and participating in judicial processes, for example, through helping to transfer offenders back to their home communities on completion of their sentences. All of these activities took place under the guidance of a Four Corners Council of Elders that was founded in Alice Springs in February 1991 and comprised about 50 initiated male Elders from town camps. A Women’s Elders’ Council was also established at the same time (Memmott 1992).

As part of the program, the Four Corners Council issued a set of rules prescribing expected behaviour on the part of ‘bush mob’ visiting Alice Springs, reproduced below in Box 9.7.

Box 9.7 Draft Rules for Bush Mob Visiting Town Camps: Social Behaviour Rules

Extract from Memmott et al. (2003: 22)

Produced by the Four Corners Elders Council, Tangentyere Council, Alice Springs, 1991.

  1. 1.

    Visitors coming in from bush should stay no longer than one week.

  2. 2.

    People shouldn’t come into town to avoid ceremony business.

  3. 3.

    People coming out of gaol should go straight back to their community.

  4. 4.

    Bush Councils should help Tangentyere to get troublemakers out of town.

  5. 5.

    Bush Councils should worry about their people who are in town.

  6. 6.

    People shouldn’t stay on a town camp unless they’ve got permission from the bosses of the camp first.

  7. 7.

    When people from the bush are asked to go back to their community they should do so as quickly as possible.

  8. 8.

    Bush visitors shouldn’t chase after other people’s wives and daughters in town.

  9. 9.

    People visiting Alice Springs should have full respect for Arrernte people and their country.

  10. 10.

    People visiting town for drinking should only stay one or two days and should learn to drink without fighting.

  11. 11.

    Visitors from bush should take notice of what Four Corners Elders, camp bosses and Night Patrol mob tell them.

  12. 12.

    Visitors should be careful where they camp in town.

  13. 13.

    People who are banned from drinking at road houses shouldn’t come to Alice Springs for drinking.

  14. 14.

    People who make big trouble on camps and won’t go home should expect to get into big trouble with the police and wind up in gaol.

  15. 15.

    People banned from town shouldn’t break their parole or bond. They should stay out of town.

  16. 16.

    People from bush shouldn’t camp with dialysis patients and pensioners, or make trouble for them or bludge off them.

Higgins described the program as a ‘hub’ linking with both the Tangentyere night patrol and the wardens program (Higgins 1997: 72–82). So far as we are aware, neither the implementation nor outcomes of the program have been documented. In at least one respect, however, it appears to have had an enduring impact. In December 2017, Tangentyere’s Four Corners Men’s Council, with several younger members now taking the place of others who had passed away, publicly renewed its endorsement of the rules, now labelled ‘Going to Town Rules’ (Hose 2017).

A similar approach that took the form of a set of ‘Cultural Protocols’ was subsequently adopted in Darwin by Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation (LNAC), representing the traditional Aboriginal occupants of Darwin (Memmott and Fantin 2001). The protocols were first formulated in 2001, following a series of workshops and consultations in Darwin convened to identify solutions to a problem defined as one of homelessness among ‘Indigenous itinerants’—that is, Aboriginal people who travelled to, and sometimes settled in, campsites scattered in and around Darwin. They were known as ‘long-grassers’, after the tall spear grass that sprung up in the area every monsoonal season, and had long been viewed, especially by non-Aboriginal residents of Darwin, as undesirables whose propensity to drink, fight, swear and ‘humbug’ in public places was an affront to good order and amenity.

The Cultural Protocols originated as part of a comprehensive and ambitious ‘Indigenous Itinerants Strategy’ that included a revamped and expanded community patrol, case management of individuals, assistance in helping individuals return to the communities from which they had come to Darwin, encouraging remote communities to establish licensed clubs and expanded accommodation options in Darwin (Memmott and Fantin 2001). Much of the strategy never saw the light of day, but the Cultural Protocols formed a central part of what became known as the Community Harmony Project developed by the NT Government in partnership with LNAC (Fisher 2012). The protocols continue to be endorsed by LNAC today, with a few modifications to the original 2001 draft. Box 9.8 shows the current version.

Box 9.8 Larrakia Nation Cultural Protocols for Visitors

Source Protocol - Larrakia Nation

The Larrakia people have developed a set of cultural protocols for visitors to Larrakia land through the Community Harmony Project. These protocols apply to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal visitors and both temporary visitors and residents on Larrakia Country. They are as follows:

The Larrakia have always welcomed people to our lands, despite our ongoing struggle for proper recognition of our rights. The Larrakia aim to foster relationships according to our cultural protocols, which we ask you to respect.

  1. 1.

    The Larrakia people are the Aboriginal traditional owners of all land and waters of the greater Darwin area including identified Aboriginal living areas.

  2. 2.

    Aboriginal lore/law requires respect for the cultural authority of the traditional owners.

  3. 3.

    Larrakia speak for Larrakia country; other traditional owners speak for their traditional lands.

  4. 4.

    We have a mutual obligation to care for our country with our neighbours.

  5. 5.

    Visitors should be aware that we have a body of knowledge in our land and waters, which includes sites of significance.

  6. 6.

    Larrakia people expect visitors and service providers to be aware of Larrakia cultural obligations and to respect and acknowledge them.

  7. 7.

    Visitors have the right to be treated with respect and understanding.

  8. 8.

    All visitors are responsible for their behaviour and should respect guidance of Larrakia.

  9. 9.

    Learning about country is everybody’s responsibility and it is also the responsibility of government and non-government agencies.

  10. 10.

    Inappropriate behaviour reflects badly on Larrakia people and we do not accept it.

The protocols, together with a specially commissioned painting and video by local Aboriginal artist Kootji Raymond, were widely disseminated throughout Darwin in shops, service stations, video stores, parks and along city walking trails (Fisher 2012). Fisher, an anthropologist who conducted fieldwork with LNAC in the early 2000s, describes the production and dissemination of the protocols, and the Community Harmony Project of which they were part, as part of a broader political realignment involving the NT Government and LNAC, in which, in return for foregoing part of their native title claim to Darwin and its surrounds, LNAC gained a tangible stake in property and other corporate resources, and recognition as the traditional owners of the land on which Darwin stands (Fisher 2012). LNAC, in this context, had a common interest with the NT Government in minimising demands and disruption caused by Aboriginal visitors from outside Darwin. The Cultural Protocols in this context can be seen as serving a symbolic function of asserting a form of Larrakia sovereignty—one directed not only at non-Aboriginal residents of Darwin but also at other Aboriginal people.

The alignment has not gone uncontested. As Fisher notes, the portrayal of ‘long-grassers’ as homeless itinerants who belonged, by implication, back in their home communities was challenged by some Aboriginal activists who argued that for many people, living in the long-grass was a lifestyle choice rather than a product of homelessness, and that for some of these people, Darwin was home. In 2001, activists formed a Longgrass Association to press their case in the policy domain (Fisher 2012).

9.10 Summary and Conclusions: Patrols and Community Policing

For all the differences among them, the patrols, warden schemes and protocols reviewed above—as well as many others not described here—are instruments designed to enable Aboriginal communities and organisations to reclaim control over some of the drivers of order and disorder, safety and danger in their communities, and to draw on culturally appropriate ways of preventing and resolving disputes. They are not extensions of state policing or substitutes for good-quality policing.

In this chapter, we have traced the emergence of community patrols in the 1970s in several communities—most though not all of them remote—initially as unfunded, volunteer-staffed initiatives that sought to mobilise local, culturally grounded ways of preventing and resolving disputes, and the authority of respected Elders. Following the 1990 report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, community patrols took on a more prominent role as vehicles for a style of policing advocated by the Commission as preferable to more punitive policing practices. The number of patrols operating in remote, regional and urban settings grew, as did the flow of government resources to them.

At the same time, many patrols became subjected to conflicting role-expectations, with local authorities and other bodies viewing them as extensions of mainstream policing funded to keep drunks off the streets, rather than exercises in deploying Aboriginal authority to prevent and defuse conflicts.

The 2007 Intervention—formally known as the NT National Emergency Response—redefined the role of community patrols as vehicles for a government-defined community safety policy. Funding was increased and placed under the authority of the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department. In the NT, where only 23 of 73 Aboriginal communities directly affected by the NTER had operating patrols, the Government decreed that all communities should do so—within a 10-month period. The result has been that community patrols today are better funded than in the past, but community control over how patrols operate has been undermined.

Two other control measures touched on in this chapter are warden schemes and cultural protocols formulated by traditional owners of a community or area defining acceptable and unacceptable behaviour by Aboriginal (and other) people residing in the area. Neither of these has been as prominent as community patrols in addressing harmful drinking. Warden schemes typically complement patrols, with wardens appointed by the community body to work with individuals towards ensuring their compliance with local community expectations.

While several descriptive accounts of patrols, warden schemes and cultural protocols exist, few have been evaluated, and it is not possible to assess their impact or outcomes. Anecdotally, most patrols and related measures enjoy strong community support, although the extent to which this has been maintained in the wake of declining community control is not clear.

All of the schemes considered in this chapter have operated within social and political contexts created, firstly, by dynamics within the host communities or organisations and, secondly, by government policies and practices. At various times, the latter have both enabled and undermined community policing of alcohol. The challenge today for governments remains what it has long been: to respect and support communities and community organisations working to control alcohol use, without making either of two errors to which governments are prone: (1) placing naïve expectations on the capacity of community organisations (and then penalising them when they do not meet those expectations) or (2) exercising excessive control as a price for providing support, as the federal government has arguably done in the wake of the 2007 Intervention in the NT.

In concluding this chapter, we reproduce seven principles for best practice in community patrols, advanced by Blagg in his review of patrols in Western Australia.

Box 9.9 Best Practice Principles for Community Patrols: Some Key Points

Extract from Blagg (2006: 4–5):

  1. 1.

    To operate effectively patrols need to be embedded in the local Aboriginal community. This does not mean that all workers and administrators need to be Aboriginal people; rather that patrols require the endorsement of the Aboriginal community to operate effectively, it requires cultural authority. Amongst other things, this means that the patrol will need to acknowledge Aboriginal customary law and culture. It will also need to respect Aboriginal sensibilities around ‘avoidance’ where necessary and ensure that protocols governing men and women’s spheres of responsibility are respected.

  2. 2.

    Patrols operate without police powers. Aboriginal patrols tend to see their role in terms of mediation rather enforcement, they should not be used as an alternative to the police or private security.

  3. 3.

    A patrol’s primary role should be to divert Aboriginal people away from enmeshment in the criminal justice and related systems and, where necessary, into community owned systems of care, control and support.

  4. 4.

    They also have a key role in the early identification of potential victims of crime and should be viewed as having a victim support role.

  5. 5.

    Processes of capacity building are necessary to support patrols. There is a need for ‘cultural’ capacity building in non-Aboriginal agencies working with patrols. These should involve cultural training by local Aboriginal elders and people of significance.

  6. 6.

    Patrols should not be viewed in isolation as stand-alone para-policing initiatives, rather they need to be situated within an emerging sphere of Aboriginal-owned community justice mechanisms, supported by the Aboriginal domain.

  7. 7.

    Funding, training and appropriate forms of information gathering are crucial to the long-term viability of patrols.

As this chapter makes clear, the fundamental principle on which all the measures considered here rest is that of community ownership—a term that is easily proclaimed in policy rhetoric, but in practice, something that is complex, fragile and in need of constant defence.