Right: Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton, delivering his remarks to the effect that Melbourne residents were afraid to go out to restaurants in case they were attacked by African gangs.
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Arguments that claims about African gangs have been exaggerated
1. African youths are involved in a small percentage of youth crime
Those who argue that claims about the African gang problem in Victoria are exaggerated note that the number of gang attacks involving 'African gangs' are numerically very small.
To put the problem in perspective they suggest the contribution of non-Australian born offenders be compared with that of the Australian born. In 2016-7, 1,462 Australian-born individuals were charged with serious assault. Three other groups, New Zealand-born residents, Kenyan-born residents and Sudan-born residents together were charged with 151 cases of serious assault. All three groups combined committed slightly over a tenth of the assaults committed by Australian-born assailants. Sudan-born residents were charged with a total of 45 assaults, less than half the 91 attributed to New Zealand-born residents. The number of serious assault charges brought against Kenyan-born residents was only 15. In the two preceding years the contribution made to serious assaults in Victoria by Sudan- and Kenyan-born residents was even smaller.
Those who believe claims about African youth crime in Victoria are exaggerated do not argue that African youth are not involved in crime, rather they argue that the contribution these ethnic groups make is very small relative to that of Australian-born citizens.
On the ABC's site Triple Hack it was noted 'The stats...show that a Victorian is 25 times more likely to be seriously assaulted by someone born in Australia or New Zealand than someone born in Sudan or Kenya.
They are almost five times more likely to be the victim of an aggravated burglary committed by an Australian or New Zealand-born offender, than one born in Sudan or Kenya.'
The second-highest cohort charged with committing a crime in the year up to September 2017, after those born in Australia, were New Zealanders, which are the fourth-largest migrant group in Victoria.
In an article published in The Age on April 21, 2017, Chris Johnston stated, 'The new data shows overwhelmingly that people born in Australia commit most crimes in Victoria - 67 per cent of murders, 71 per cent of rapes or indecent assaults, nearly 90 per cent of "non-aggravated" burglaries and 84.4 per cent of car thefts.'
Victoria's Police Chief Commissioner, Graeme Ashton, has stated, 'I wouldn't describe it as a crisis. I think if you put it into context, you've got a few hundred offenders engaging in offending in a city of 41/2 million people.'
Those who are sceptical about African refugees capacity to integrate into Australian society argue that what is significant is not the relatively small contribution these groups make to Victoria's total crime figures, rather, they argue, what needs to be considered is the size of their contribution relative to the very small proportion of the Victorian population they form.
Those urging caution when making judgements about African youth argue that critics need to be aware of the unique circumstances of groups such as the Sudanese in Victoria. Anthony Kelly, the executive officer of Flemington and Kensington Community Legal Centre, which covers areas with a significant migrant population, has noted the Sudanese community has a much younger average age and a higher incidence of other factors associated with a high crime rate, such as poverty and lack of engagement in work and school.
Age is a critical factor in explaining an elevated crime participation rate relative to the percentage of Victoria's population a group forms. Scott Steel, in a comment published in Crikey on November 22, 2008, noted '15-29 year olds make up the highest proportion of distinct offenders when it comes to crime across Australia.' Scott concludes that any cohort that is disproportionately young is likely to have a high crime rate.
Supporters of Sudanese youth argue these young people are not intrinsically criminal, rather they are vulnerable and steps should be taken to provide peer support, role models, language and educational support and assistance with entering the job market.
On January 9, 2018, it was announced that Victoria Police has established a community taskforce with African-Australian leaders. The aim of this group is to act early on anti-social behaviour among African youth and also to act against the sort of vilification that makes integration difficult for young African people. The focus of the taskforce is prevention.
2. African youths are not part of traditional 'crime gangs'
Victoria Police have not referred to the groups of African youths who have been involved in vandalism, assaults and burglaries as 'crime gangs'.
Opponents of the position the police have taken argue this refusal to use the term 'gang' is simply 'political correctness', an unwillingness to call something for what it is through fear of giving offence or provoking unease.
However, Victorian Police have maintained their refusal to refer to these groups as gangs has been in the name of accuracy. From the point of view of their current crime potential the groups of Sudanese youths being referred to in the media do not constitute a 'crime gang' as police understand and use the term.
Victoria Police Deputy Chief Commissioner, Shane Patton, has stated, 'From a Victoria Police perspective we have been consistent all the way along that what we traditionally view as organised crime gangs are...high-level organised crime gangs.
Deputy Chief Commissioner Patton further stated, ' These young thugs, these young criminals, they're not an organised crime group like a Middle Eastern organised crime group or an outlaw motorcycle gang. But they're behaving like street gangs, so let's call them that - that's what they are.'
The Deputy Chief Commissioner stressed it was important not to give these groups a status beyond the current nature of their offending. He stated, ' We don't shy away from calling people gangs, it's not an issue for us. It's about the offending ... Let's not elevate them to a status they should not be elevated to...
From a Victoria Police point of view, 'crime gang' is a term used to refer to those such as criminal bikie gangs which are involved in drug and firearms trafficking
and who have inter-gang rivalries which can result in gang wars and the assassination of opposing gang members. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner, Graeme Ashton, has also stated that in some areas the groupings were not simply of one ethnicity. Commissioner Ashton has referred to a 'United Nations of offending'. Commissioner Ashton has further stated, 'They're coming together with social media ... it's kids coming together to offend. They'll hook up with whoever they can hook up with that they know, even loosely know, to do that. It's not like we traditionally think about with gangs.'
Sudanese community youth leaders have also been reluctant to see the term 'gang' applied to groups of young offenders of Sudanese origin. South Sudanese community leader, Richard Deng, stated, 'These are young people who like to make a name for themselves to look tough in front of the Victorian Police, for example.'
3. The vast majority of African immigrants are law-abiding citizens harmed by 'African gang' references
On both sides of this issue (those highlighting the extent of African gang crime and those arguing it is being overstated) there is a general consensus that the vast majority of the Sudanese community in Victoria, and in Australia overall, is law-abiding.
On January 2, 2018 Victoria Police Deputy Chief Commissioner, Chris Patton, stated, 'Let's not say that all of the African community are criminals because they are not. The vast majority are good people.'
On January 2, 2018, during an interview on the ABC's 7.30, Victoria's Police Minister, Lisa Neville, similarly stated, 'Most African community members are law-abiding citizens doing the right thing, their kids are at school, they're looking for jobs.'
On January 6, 2018, The Guardian published a comment by Victoria Police Commander, Russell Barrett, in which he also stated, 'The vast majority of the African community, irrespective of their ages, are respectable and law-abiding people.'
It has been claimed that the readiness to see groups of African people as 'gangs' and the association of African ancestry with criminality is harming this large, law-abiding group.
On January 6, 2018, The Guardian treated the position of this majority group, focusing on the situation of one Sudanese woman and her family.
The Guardian article stated, 'Nyadol Nyuon arrived in Australia as an 18-year-old in 2005 and works as a commercial litigation lawyer at Melbourne law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler.
Her children and her sister's children consider themselves Australian, she says, because they are. They have not known anywhere else. "They see themselves only as Australians; they happen to be black," she says.
She says the conflation of people of South Sudanese descent with gang crime is hurtful because it not only associates people who look like her and her children with criminality, but also draws a line between them and the rest of Australian society.
It isolates community members and makes them think they are not part of the society, and actually that they can never become part of the society, because somehow their citizenship or their stay in Australia is constantly up for negotiation...You are an Australian until a South Sudanese person commits an offence and then you are a South Sudanese-Australian, who is likely to be a potential criminal."'
On January 11, 2018, (a week after his African gang crime remarks) the federal Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, stated, 'I'm not, like any Australian, wanting to see a very small element of a community - in this case the African community - define the rest of the community, which is law abiding, engaged in society, working, employed, studying, whatever it might be.'
Critics of Mr Dutton's original remarks argue that, whatever his intentions, he has helped to stigmatise this law-abiding majority and fed far-right, racially-based hostility.
4. African criminality has been sensationalised and misrepresented by sections of the media
Critics of the treatment the issue of African gang violence has received in sections of the Australian media argue it has been dramatised and over-stated in a manner likely to cause public panic.
Critics of this supposed media over-statement and misrepresentation claim that it has been occurring for over ten years, at least since 2007. In 2008 the Australian Press Council upheld a complaint against The Australian newspaper surrounding the murder of a 19-year-old Sudanese refugee, Liep Gony. 'The Press Council...upheld a complaint that The Australian incorrectly implied that the fatal bashing of a young Sudanese student in Melbourne was at the hands of a Sudanese gang.
The Australian's report, six months later, on March 25, 2008, stated, "Sudanese gang violence escalated last September with the fatal bashing of 19-year-old Liep Gony. The wording implies that his death arose from Sudanese gang violence yet, on October 3, 2007, just one week after Gony's death, two Caucasian men were extradited from Adelaide and charged with his murder.
The newspaper then ran another report on April 16, 2008 as well as a feature article the
same day, which said in part: " .. .following a spike in crime among young Sudanese men that escalated last September with the fatal bashing of 19-year-old refugee Liep Gony..." Once more the suggestion is that Gony's death was caused by violence involving groups of Sudanese men.'
The Press Council finding and the previous misreporting in The Australian were significant because the then federal Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, used the supposed circumstances of Gony's death as an after-the-event explanation of his decision to reduce the number of humanitarian settlement places in Australia that would be made available to African refugees.
Questioned about Gony's death, the minister stated, 'I have been concerned that some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope and therefore it makes sense to put the extra money in to provide extra resources, but also to slow down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan.'
On October 8, 2007, the ABC's Media Watch presented reports televised on Channels 7, 9 and 10 supposedly showing African gang violence. Examination of each report appeared to disprove this.
Following the Media Watch segment, The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) ruled that channels Ten, Nine and Seven breached the Commercial Television Industry code of practice by blaming people of African origin for violent offences and wrongly implying they were prone to crime.
Concern has been expressed that exaggerated media reports and ill-judged media conduct could precipitate the criminal behaviour supposedly being reported. It has been claimed by Victoria Police that a recent alleged 'gang flare-up' at Tarneit reported by The Daily Mail on January 3, 2018,
was in fact provoked by a Daily Mail photographer taking close-up photographs of Sudanese youths who had not been engaged in any sort of illegal activity. 5. Politicians have sensationalised the issue for electoral advantage
Critics of claims made about the crime problem supposedly associated with African youth argue that some politicians are making these claims for political advantage.
There is to be a state election in Victoria on November 24, 2018. Some commentators have stated that remarks made about the supposed African gang crime problem in Victoria by the federal Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, and the Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt were intended as attacks on the Victorian Labor Government.
Those who claim this argue that as members of the Liberal National Coalition in the federal Parliament, these two ministers were acting to support their colleagues in Victoria who are currently in opposition. Both Dutton
and Hunt placed the blame for the current supposed problem with the Labor Premier, Daniel Andrews, and his government.On January 4, 2018, Labor federal front bencher, Anthony Albanese accused Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, of 'playing politics' over the African gangs issue. Albanese stated, ' I think Peter Dutton's comments should be seen for what they are - all about politics, obviously in conjunction with the Liberal Party in Victoria, which is obviously desperate for an issue against the Andrews government that is governing effectively here in Victoria.'
Albanese argued that if the federal government were actually concerned about youth crime in Victoria or the position of refugees it should offer targeted assistance. Albanese stated, ' The Commonwealth government could make a contribution by actually not cutting the AFP funds, as they have; the Commonwealth government could make a contribution by not cutting new migrant services, as they have; and new support for people to get into employment and addressing those issues.'
These points were also made by Victoria's Police Minister, Lisa Neville, who stated, 'I would appreciate the Commonwealth Government focusing on other issues, like providing migration support to immigrants coming into our community, stop cutting youth employment programs that are also so critical, TAFE problems and university.
All of those things that are so critical to really getting to some of the root causes of this issue rather than playing politics of this nature.'
Sudanese community leaders have similarly accused political leaders of trying to gain a political advantage through the issue. Richard Deng, from the South Sudanese Community Association of Victoria, has claimed that the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was using the issue as 'a tool to win elections'. Mr Deng stated, 'The Prime Minister needs to man up, support the State Government, support the African community, don't target them just because of the political agenda you want to drive.'