The Northern Territory government has announced it will extend its controversial youth curfew in Alice Springs for another six days.
Under the rules, any child seen outside during curfew hours will be taken home or to a safe place and no criminal penalties will be applied.
A day before the curfew was set to expire, NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler has confirmed she will keep it in place until school resumes next Tuesday.
“The youth curfew will run until 6am on Tuesday the first day back at school. The youth curfew will cover the entire school holidays,” she said at a press conference today.
“We’ve seen very encouraging results with introduction of the youth curfew.”
The decision came after a summit late yesterday afternoon, where authorities met with residents and community leaders to receive feedback on the youth curfew.
Lawler said the overwhelming consensus was the curfew had been a “great success”.
“The conversations on the ground from Alice Springs residents is that this has been the best thing that has happened to Alice Springs,” she said.
“It really was a circuit breaker. People are feeling so much safer and more comfortable.”
Lawler said that despite seeing some burglaries in the suburbs and at commercial properties, there had been decreasing crime in and around the Alice Springs CBD.
“The main thing is we have seen a decrease of youth coming in behaving criminally,” she said.
