From afar, Alice Springs is a whirlpool of myth and truth. A town with competing interests and few solutions, marked by chaos and decades of government overreach. 

That all came to a head last year with what’s been described as a “youth riot” in town. The violence led to the Northern Territory government imposing an emergency curfew. 

This is when the headlines started: In cities and towns across Australia, we read about a “crisis” about “rampages”. One newspaper described the kids here as “tiny menaces stuck on a turnstile of trouble”.

In this three-part series, 7am’s Daniel James visits Alice Springs to find out how all the interventions, big and small, by governments of all persuasions have led to this chaos. What he finds is that almost all of it leads back to one thing.

Daniel then visits the police headquarters to meet the Arrernte woman tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in Alice Springs – to fix the culture inside the police force. 

Lastly, he heads to a station in the MacDonnell Ranges that offers an oasis of calm amid the chaos. But even here the cycle of incarceration and violence is never far from children’s lives. 

This series was originally published in October 2024.

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Guest: Hosted and reported by Daniel James