More than 100 young people rioted and threw bottles at police cars in the town of Torquay. But where was the outrage?

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

To see the political narrative at play in Victoria’s alleged African gang crisis, criminologist Mark Wood says, look no further than the surf coast town of Torquay.

On Thursday, while politicians were debating whether Victorians were afraid to dine out at restaurants because of “African gang violence,” more than 100 young people rioted and threw bottles at police cars in the tourist town, hitting one officer in the face and prompting local police to call for back-up from Geelong and Melbourne.

The Geelong Advertiser ran a story on Saturday, picked up by its stablemate the Herald Sun, but it caused barely a blip on the national media radar. If the assailants had been of African appearance, Wood says, it would have been front-page news.

The youths would also probably have been called a “gang”, not “a group”, he said.

'We’re not a gang': the unfair stereotyping of African-Australians Read more

“The media coverage here is very political because it is very selective,” Woods said. “The current narrative being put forward by a number of senior politicians in the Liberal-National party is that youth crime in Victoria is an immigration-related issue … It has become very racialized.”

Wood said the focus on crimes committed by people of African descent was both the cause and consequence of that political narrative.

Victoria is headed toward a state election in November and the opposition leader, Matthew Guy has made it clear that law and order – currently distilled through the perceived increase in crime by young Sudanese people allegedly acting as “street gangs” – will be his primary focus.

Guy told reporters at a media conference on Monday, called to discuss a Fairfax ReachTel poll about voter perceptions of crime, that the Andrews government was “seemingly ignoring the biggest issue on people’s minds”.

The poll of the Labor-held seats of Tarneit, in the western suburbs of Melbourne, and Cranborne, in the south-east, found that a majority of respondents believed youth crime had increased in the past 12 months; that the main issue with youth crime was “gangs of African origin”; and that youth crime was a “very important” factor deciding their vote.

However, a majority said the premier, Daniel Andrews, would be more effective in dealing with crime than Guy.

That is a blow for the Coalition, said RMIT professor of public policy David Hayward, because law and order is the only perceived weak link in the Andrews government’s armour, after a relatively good economic performance.

“Part of the problem from [Matthew Guy’s] point of view is, what else is he going to run on?” Hayward said. “Because everything else is looking very, very strong.

Labor lambasts Dutton for 'playing to the crowd' over Melbourne crime comments Read more

“The one area that appears to be the weak spot for Labor is the law and order issue to do with these alleged gangs, and it’s really largely based on some spurious statistics and quite a populist campaign being driven by News Limited.”

Both Wood and Helen Fatouros, the executive director of criminal law services at Victoria Legal Aid, said that, far from being “soft on crime”, the Andrews government has tipped too far towards a punitive approach.

It committed $2bn towards hiring 3,000 new police officers in December 2016 and $288m towards building a new high security youth detention centre near Werribee, was found in breach of human rights laws for housing children in an adult prison and has presided over the largest prison population in Victoria’s history.

It has also overseen an increase in the number of recorded criminal incidents and criminal offences during its four-year term, peaking in 2016 before a record decline in 2017.

Fatouros said youth justice policy should be based on evidence, not a political campaign.

“If we react in fear as a community based on distorted messaging in some of the popular debate, we will disrupt a whole lot of reform that is already under way, and that will necessarily take time to address entrenched, underlying socioeconomic disadvantage,” she said.