Comments from politicians describing members of an Aboriginal gang as "pure evil" and "little turds" only encourages their behaviour, a senior criminologist says.

Some of the gang's 49 members have been accused of a five-week rampage, which included a dozen armed hold-ups and several home invasions.

Some of them are alleged to have taken part not long after being released from jail.

Yesterday, as some gang members appeared in court, South Australia's Attorney-General Michael Atkinson called them "pure evil" and beyond rehabilitation.

"We are dealing with an evil phenomenon. We are dealing with a criminal gang, gunmen, who go round in gangs hitting soft targets. This is about pure evil," he said.

Not to be outdone, his Opposition counterpart Vicky Chapman also had a go at the children.

"These are children who are really little turds, let's be honest, they really are difficult children and they have got all sorts of hideous backgrounds and they're nasty little pieces of work," she said.

A talkback caller this morning on ABC local radio joined the fray.

"The citizens of Adelaide - and I know in my own area - have been absolutely terrorised, really, really terrorised. Now surely this gang is a mob of terrorists," they said.

Dr Allan Perry, who has specialised in criminal law at Adelaide University for 33 years, says publicity will only encourage the gang members.

"I think it's understandable that people can both be frustrated and fearful about this kind of behaviour but the talk in those sort of emotive ways doesn't improve the situation at all," he said.

"I'm afraid all it does is reinforce the extremely inefficient punishment paradigm that has characterised the correction system in South Australia for a very long time."

Dr Perry says comments like the Attorney-General's are made for purely political reasons.

"I certainly think that publicity given to it encourages them. For senior government officials and Opposition officials to come out in this sort of way, I think increases the sense of celebrity that they," he said.

"It certainly can't be seen to be done for any sort of effective reason.

"It's been done purely for political reasons, which is what so much of criminal justice policy is underpinned by and why overall it's so ineffective."

But earlier today, Attorney-General Michael Atkinson was standing by his comments on ABC local radio.

"They're using guns, they're bashing people with the butt of the gun, they're putting their exploits up on Facebook and boasting about it, they have no conception that what they're doing is wrong - yes they're evil," he said.