Kids running wild in lawless Alice Springs have an archaic two-word catchphrase they blurt out to police whenever they’re caught.
The two words are routinely rolled out by troublemakers to emphasise they’re too young to be charged – even if the cops know they’re acting criminally on their parents’ behalf.
‘Doli incapax’ is a Latin term from the Middle Ages meaning ‘incapable of evil’ – and legally applies to children aged between 10 and 14.
Even if they don’t know the origin of the words, the young criminals repeating them know that kids under the age of 12 in the Northern Territory cannot be charged.
Alice Springs locals were quick to mock Anthony Albanese as the ‘fly-in fly-out’ or ‘FIFO’ PM after his whirlwind visit to the troubled community on Tuesday.
Anthony Albanese is being mocked as the ‘fly in fly out’ PM after his entourage’s visit to troubled Alice Spring lasted only a few hours and managed to skirt around violence and drinking occurring in the town
On Facebook locals mocked the PM’s visit and one quoted the John Denver song ‘leaving on a jet plane , don’t know when I’ll be back again’
After the visit lasting just a few hours, Mr Albanese was accused of failing to get his head across what was really happening on the streets.
Crime and lawlessness in the iconic Outback city entered the national spotlight this week amid reports up to 200 children roam the streets at night, breaking into homes and businesses and stealing and burnings cars.
According to videos posted on the Action for Alice Facebook page, the PM’s visit coincided with a stabbing in the Coles-Liquorland car park, and open drinking of a ‘hand sanitiser cocktail’ by a woman in front of children on a main street.
One person posted a picture of the jet stream of the PM’s plane, writing ‘Albo leaving 5 mins after the press conference’, which prompted the response: ‘Albo loves his jets. He’s never out of them’.
Another joked ‘what was the John Denver song … I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again’, and one person questioned if ‘Albo and the rest of the fly in fly outs’ saw the ambulances gathered for an emergency on a town main street.
Others posted ‘Did any of them visit business owners in town’ and ‘word is he was only in town 2 hours then gone’
A distressed mother posted this photo of a woman openly drinking a ‘hand sanitiser cocktail’ on an Alice Springs visit during the PM’s visit wishing her kids could ‘unsee’ incident
Alice Springs business owner and the whistleblower on the crisis, Darren Clarke, told Daily Mail Australia that saying “doli incapax” is now standard among the hundreds of kids that roam the streets out of control.
‘Last week there was a break-in of a house by a 14-year-old with a six-year-old and a five-year-old. It’s out of control,’ he said.
‘Adults are driving these kids around in cars and the kids get dropped off to go and steal stuff because kids don’t go to jail, and if they do get caught by police it’s just “doli incapax”.’
A senior legal source told Daily Mail Australia the term, simply referred to as ‘Doli’, means the child is presumed to not have the mental element or ‘mens rea’ to be guilty or to know what they were doing is seriously morally wrong.
As Mr Albanese and his entourage flew in and out of Alice Springs, people continued to post photos of violence and vandalism in the lawless Outback town
A woman wrangles with another person in the car park of Liquorland/ Coles in Alice Springs during a reported stabbing on Tuesday while the PM and other officials made a flying visit to the town
Alice Springs baker and anti-violence campaigner Darren Clarke told Daily Mail Australia how local kids repeat the archaic term ‘doli incapax’ to police when they get caught to emphasise that they are too young to be charged
Darren Clarke – who described the PM’s visit and the resulting, limited alcohol bans he made as ‘a band-aid’ – told Daily Mail Australia politicians’ had done ‘too little too late’ and that he thought it was ‘too late to save’ the children currently running amok.
‘This has been their lifestyle for years and years now,’ he said, ‘it started during Covid, the parents drinking hand sanitiser and mixing it with orange juice.’
Kids in Alice Springs and other cities and town camps in the Northern Territory were now doing the same, as well as some sniffing substances like petrol and glue, and Mr Clarke said methamphetamine was now also available in Alice Springs.
On the same day the PM visited, a mother of young children posted a photo on Action For Alice of a woman in the town’s main street at 3.45pm openly drinking hand sanitiser.
The post said, ‘kids and I finish up borrowing books from the ASTC library and walk past the couple in the picture.
‘My kids tell me “Mum, Mum she’s drinking hand sanitiser”. I look over, sure enough lady squirts hand sanitizer into her water bottle, shakes it, consumes the cocktail.
‘The bloke assists her to stand and she staggers away … just wish my kids could un-see that.’
Mr Clarke’s Facebook page attracted many comments in the wake of the PM’s visit, with one person posting, ‘Keep up the MEDIA attention ALICE residents! You must NOT allow this to be silenced.
‘Forget the bloody namby pamby VOICE agenda and sort out the YOUTH issues.
‘Alice Springs youth KNOW that they are untouchable, just ask them. Restricting alcohol is a bloody farce and they know it, the township folk know it, this is about YOUTH.’
When Mr Clarke’s Action for Alice 2020 attracted national attention this week, critics claimed the prime minister was ‘shamed into’ a hasty fly-in and measures which are unlikely to solve the problem.
Wearing a football jumper as a mask, this young man tried to break in to Alice Spring’s oldest pub, the Todd Tavern last weekend by doing a running jump at the metal shutter.
Anthony Albanese’s ‘FIFO’ visit to Alice Springs did not impress many locals who mocked the brief fly-in by his entourage which coincided with more crime in the lawless tow
Mr Albanese’s new bans on takeaway alcohol sales on Mondays and Tuesdays, include restricting sales to one transaction per person per day, every other day, and only between 3pm and 7pm.
But Mr Clarke said if takeaway alcohol was still allowed in town camps, indigenous children would continue to live in unsafe environments, and escape back into Alice Springs to get away, or commit crimes at the behest of adults.
‘There’s blood on the walls at home, kids see people being hurt and the kids are being raped and abused,’ he said.
‘You have to save the kids but no-one will speak out about it because everyone is scared about the Stolen Generation.
‘That’s what’s inhibiting kids being put into a safe spot.
The metal shutters down at Woolies in Alice Springs where locals are forced to shop behind closed doors as a security measure in the crime-ridden town
An Alice Springs man posted this video of the five children who broke into his Tennant Creek house, where they spent 30 minutes trashing the place before leaving
The owner’s security camera caught this person carrying a knife when the kids broke in, unperturbed by the alarm and ate his food and watched Tv before trashing the place
Alice Springs business owners and residents are forced to install extra security measures on doors to prevent break-ins by children armed with weapons including this hatchet (right) left at a crime scene
Other Outback towns such as Tennant Creek are also reeling from a wave of violence and armed break-ins by teenagers since July 17, 2022, when alcohol was available for the first time in many of the Territory’s indigenous town camps for the first time since 2007.
