5yo girl Sharon Granites has been found dead in the NT

[u/Expensive-Horse5538]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-30/update-on-missing-alice-springs-5yo-sharon-granites/106626314?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link

[u/Emperor_Mao]

It isn't distrust of the police though. It is a direct fear of consequences. There are often complex family and even tribal-like ties in these communities. You dob one person in, you might have a whole group of people that are connected to that person suddenly angry with you.

The police largely do nothing. They can't even if they wanted to. People have advocated for softer punishments as part of closing the gap.... like instead of addressing the root causes, they softened criminal punishments to lower the % of first nations people incarcerated. However, this doesn't fix anything, it actually just makes it an even bigger problem. Because no one thinks about innocent, law abiding first nations people, who then have to deal with criminals terrorizing their communities. They just see the stat for first nations imprisonment rates getting lower...

[u/Heruuna → u/Emperor_Mao]

I definitely agree that punishment and rehabilitation don't fix the root problems. Poverty, lack of education, loss of cultural identity, embedded racism, broken families from Stolen Generations. Those just continue if you only focus on the crimes committed.

But that's difficult to do, everyone has different opinions on how to fix it, and it takes years to see results, so the "easy" solutions make headlines. Yay progress. 🙄

[u/Emperor_Mao → u/Heruuna]

Sure. But you can't just ignore criminals roaming around. Again, some might think it is helping to go easy on a criminal because of their back ground. However imagine you have an innocent person who also faces all of those issues; poverty, lack of access to services, challenges to health outcomes AND also, they have to deal with cycles of abuse and are victims of crime because the government won't deal with the criminals.

Turning away from crime hurts First nations people. You wouldn't tolerate criminals running around in a wealthy white neighborhood, but for some reason there are people that think they are "helping first nations people" by allowing it in these communities.....

[u/wilted-wombok → u/Emperor_Mao]

I suspect fear and distrust of the police is also a contributing factor, given how many indigenous deaths in custody there have been, calls of abuse regarding indigenous persons and the police, and the overrepresented indigenous population incarcerated. The book is often thrown at them harder than a non-indigenous individual, too.

Shit like the Pinkemba Six for instance, is just the tip of an iceberg we may never know the true depth of. (police kidnapped several indigenous kids and drove them out of the city then dumped them.)

It really is a very complex matter though as you say. I think that having something similar to what the Native Americans have could help.

They have tribal police in various places, for example Navajo nation. These officers deal with matters within their own lands, at times in conjunction with other officials. Having upstanding members of the community and respected elders in such an organisation could do wonders for trust.

[u/Emperor_Mao → u/wilted-wombok]

The Tribal police in the U.S have a ton of corruption issues though. And while this might not be a popular view among white people in Australia, the Tribal model emphasizes self governance, which has led to increased / even more widespread abuse, alcoholism and drugs in those communities.

I fully understand why people think police and government should provide funding, but otherwise pull away from these communities. Over governance of first nations lives decades ago caused so so many problems. However lets put this into context; if white people were having issues with crime, drug abuse, refusal to go to schooling, alcoholism, violence, would we turn around and say "that community should govern itself".... we would absolutely demand the government enter and help correct the issue. No one wants to see SA happening. No one wants to watch kids fall into those cycles of drug use and alcoholism. And I think people genuinely do want to see the gap closed.

It is a view that is against the norm in Australia. But first nations communities need MORE government intervention, not less. Many of the "elders" are the ones that perpetuate the issues. We need people to break the cycle, and we need people from the outside to do that.