Almost two hundred people have been arrested in the space of just six weeks in the tiny Northern Territory town of Katherine as part of a crime crackdown by police in the highway community. The equivalent of approximately 2 per-cent of the population, the arrests have triggered concerns about the number of Aboriginal people entering custody.
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00:00A few days before Christmas, Subban James woke to find someone had been in his house.
00:07This is where they came through.
00:09My daughter was sleeping here.
00:11Luckily the six-year-old didn't wake up.
00:13We found that the car has been stolen and the bike has been taken.
00:19The car turned up a short time later, having endured a wild night.
00:23I found the harleqs full of mud, even over the top of the roof was covered with mud.
00:32It was pretty obvious that someone must have driven into a river.
00:37Since the start of December, NT Police have been running a crackdown in Catherine, known
00:42as Operation Oxley, with property crime one of the stated targets.
00:46I think off the top of my head we have five extra police.
00:49If you do the wrong thing and you're a criminal out on our street, you will be dealt with.
00:54There will be consequences and you may go to jail.
00:57Police say 199 people were arrested in the town in just six weeks.
01:02Enforcement seems to have been focused on alcohol, with more than 800 litres of liquor
01:07destroyed.
01:08Having police tipping out alcohol and arresting people at record numbers, that doesn't reduce
01:13crime at all.
01:14Legal service Naja says the number of Aboriginal people taken into custody in the town in December
01:19was up 47 per cent on the same month the previous year.
01:23What reduces crime is ensuring that we implement proper diversionary programs.
01:29The CLP government has been moving the deck chairs on the Titanic, so to speak, and now
01:35they're trying to backfill an issue that they caused by stretching our hard-working police
01:40even further.
01:41Subban says the extra police presence is working to calm things down, but he says if his thieves
01:47are caught and they turn out to be under 18, he wouldn't want to see them charged.
01:52I worked in corrections before, so I know what's happening inside.
01:57Even though I went through this, I don't wish that to happen.
02:01We have a lot of other things that could be implemented.
02:05It's not yet clear when Operation Oxley will end, with the Attorney-General saying policing
02:09levels in the town will be under ongoing review.