from yaprap February 2009
by Bree Dennis
Youth Development Officer
Greater Taree City Council
Greater Taree City Council offers a variety of programs to young people in the Manning Valley including the Street Beat Aboriginal Community Patrol.
Street Beat was initiated in response to community concerns regarding criminal, anti-social and unsafe behaviour involving young people in the Manning Valley. A strategy of the 2000 Taree Crime Prevention Plan, the project was funded by the NSW Attorney General's Department, initially through the Safer Community Compact and now through the Patrols Program. It has a current operating budget of $65,000 a year.
The target group for Street Beat is young people (indigenous and non-indigenous) under the age of 18 years who often wander the streets of Taree and surrounds aimlessly, involving themselves in criminal and anti-social behaviour that encumbers perceived community safety.
The objectives of the Taree Street Beat project are to provide alternative, more socially acceptable activities that ensure safety for young people in the Taree area and to provide safe transport to project participants. Subsequently, the aim is to reduce young people's involvement in anti-social behaviour and crime-related incidents and to increase perceived community safety and the positive image of young people as a whole.
Complementing the program is the council Youth Service's partnership with the Taree Police and Community Youth Club (PCYC). Together they host Friday Night Activities, a free program for young people age 12 to 18 years. Each Friday, Street Beat assists in transporting up to 100 young people to and from the event as well as engaging in regular patrol activity.
Regular patrols see a male and female youth worker rostered on Friday and Saturday nights to patrol the Taree CBD and surrounding areas including Old Bar, Wingham and Hallidays Point. Street Beat also patrols identified 'hot spots' in the area where young people regularly congregate including the local skate parks. The Street Beat workers aim to make positive contact with young people with a view to providing transport home or to another safe location.
The Street Beat Patrol works in close relationship with the local Police Area Command. Street Beat workers begin each shift by reporting to the local Police Station and exchanging information about local activity and planned routes for the evening's patrol. The Police also provide party registration details to Street Beat who make a point of frequenting these locations with a view to providing transport and reporting to Police if activity gets out of hand.
The Street Beat Patrol has achieved measurable success since its inception in 2001. The Taree area had a large number of young people on the streets particularly on Friday and Saturday nights. Street Beat has been very successful in reducing the number of young people roaming the streets without purpose.
Project activities including Friday Night Activities have also served to build relationships between the Street Beat workers, young participants, volunteers and other involved organisations and community members including the PCYC and their Police representatives, which has made a positive difference to perceived community safety.
The local NSW Police Area Command has indicated that the project is a major contributor to the decreased criminal activity and anti-social behaviour engaged in by young people in the Taree area, while the local Department of Juvenile Justice officers also consider that the Street Beat project has had a major impact on the decreased numbers of clients under the age of 18 years being referred through the court system to the department. In April 2006, the Taree Street Beat Project was awarded a Certificate of Merit in the National Crime Prevention Awards and was the only patrol program in Australia to do so. The Patrol continues to go from strength to strength.
More information
Bree Dennis, Youth Development Officer
- Greater Taree City Council
- (02) 6552 5715
- Bree.Dennis@gtcc.nsw.gov.au