WA Police say they have encountered almost 600 at-risk children across the Kimberley since a large-scale police operation was launched in the region last month.
An additional 24 officers were sent to the Kimberley last month as part of Operation Regional Shield (ORS) to address soaring youth crime rates and criminal violence in the region.
Kimberley district superintendent Craig Parkin said many of the 578 children police had come into contact with were out late at night without supervision, while others had never been enrolled in school.
"Police have engaged some of these children at four o'clock in the morning, at six years of age, wandering the streets, haven't been fed for a number of days … some of those stories are quite tragic," he said.
"We've also found through Operation Regional Shield during daylight hours there are a lot of children who are street present who should be at school.
"We've been working closely with education in terms of getting these young people back into the school system."
Promising results
Superintendent Parkin said more than 57 people had been arrested, and 111 charged, in the four weeks since the operation started.
He said there had also been a 40 per cent reduction in crime, such as car theft and burglaries, in Broome and Derby in the West Kimberley, and a 10 per cent reduction in these crimes in Kununurra in the region's east in the same period.
"At this point, I don't have an end date for ORS. The government has committed to this for 12 months, so we'll continue to use those resources at the front end.
"We've seen what impact that makes on police demand.
"We'll work on strategies for that about how we can continue into the future."
Big challenges, complex solutions
Kimberley MP Divina D'Anna said grassroots engagement with local leaders would be a key part of the solution to further reduce juvenile crime.
"A lot of people who live on the ground or in the communities do have ideas on what they feel they need or can do to address some of the issues to reduce some of these challenges," she said.
Ms D'Anna said she would also be advocating for structural reform within the criminal justice system aimed at keeping young offenders out of prison.
"It's about looking at an alternative sentencing facility down in Perth like on-country options up here in the Kimberley," she said.
"It's also about empowering families and supporting them and the kids in diversion programs as well to ensure they don't go down that path."
