Stolen Freddo: boy, 12, charged – The Age — A classic example of how shabbily indigenous peoples are treated in Australia, particularly in the West. Disgraceful.
Updated – Charge is likely to be withdrawn
AN ABORIGINAL boy, 12, will face a children’s court today charged with receiving a stolen Freddo frog.
The chocolate frog, allegedly shoplifted by the child’s friend from a Coles supermarket in regional Western Australia, usually sells for about 70 cents.
The boy, who has no prior convictions, also faces a second charge involving the receipt of a novelty sign from another store. The sign, which was also allegedly given to the boy by his friend, read: ”Do not enter, genius at work.”
The boy’s lawyer, Peter Collins, has lobbied WA police for the charges to be withdrawn, but authorities had failed to respond to his request, he said.
”It’s scandalous that a 12-year-old child should be subject to prosecution for a case of this type,” he told The Age.
Mr Collins said that when the boy last month missed a court date due to a family misunderstanding, police had apprehended him about 8am on a school day and taken him into custody. The boy was then imprisoned for several hours in the holding cell at the police station.
This is what happens if we dont control illegal immigration. Australia didnt stop these aborgines from coming in (sic?? eggplant?? what?) and now they are committing crimes.
children’s court sounds innocuous enough (as designed to by the state) except when you hear “police had apprehended him about 8am on a school day and taken him into custody. The boy was then imprisoned for several hours in the holding cell at the police station.”
And all for receiving candy, knowingly stolen or not!!!
I wonder how full prisons are going to be with this type of hyper prosecution?
Receiving stolen goods. Give me a fucking break.
Some Australians (i.e. humans) are racist, some are not, it is the same as everywhere else and it has a biological, evolutionary foundation (protect the tribe).
Rich people are let off by the criminal system more often than poor people, Aboriginals are generally in the lower(est) economic brackets and are also sometimes treated worse because they are Aboriginal but also because they are poor (which is sometimes due to racism).
The recent “racist” attacks in Australia were perpetrated by non-white Australians against Indian foreign-students. Indians discriminate against “lower” casts in India and have nukes pointed at Pakistan, Tutsis vs. Hutus in Rwanda, etc. endlessly. Racism is a tribal problem not an Australian problem but it is a real problem.
Australia is a fairly tolerant and egalitarian society, one of the best in my ‘white’ Irish, Spanish, Scottish, Swiss, small town then big city, Australian (apparently originally African like everyone else) opinion, but we can always do better.
George,
Are you crazy? what is your education level?
You really are stunted mentally, one, when children have constant contact with the criminal justice system they are more likely to continue offending, so it is not a deterant. If you don’t believe me, look it up, although you might find that hard considering your IQ level. Secondly, it is of no significance that the police had spoken to the child on previous occasions, as the child has no prior convictions, it is safe to assume the police did not have enough evidence to obtain an arrest and subsequent conviction. Lastly, George, do you pay the correct ammount of tax each year, have you been charged with speeding or do you try the fruit in woolworths before buying?. I’m going to assume the answer are no, yes,yes, and by your reasoning, if someone should be thrown in jail for recieving a stolen 70 cent freddo ( cost the supermarket 15 cents) than you should be put in jail for the rest of your natural life.
The story was reported in the Northern Territory news without any reference to the race of the child (nor should they).
The first thing I said was I bet the kid is a little shit and that is why he was being charged. Does that make me a racist? What has race got to do with any of this story. If a white child was charged does it change how they should be treated.
I’ll give you a hint the answer should be no!
Racism is thinking a child’s race is why he is being charged.
And racism is thinking a child’s race isn’t why he is being charged.
The good news: in 200 years there will be no aborigines because the bloodline will be so diluted that it doesn’t matter.
Long story short: in the future justice will have been served in the sense the issue will no longer exist.
It’s not racist – this can be plainly seen by the 100% of white Austrlian children that are currently in prison awaiting trial for listening to a song on a friend’s iPod that had been illegally copied from a CD they owned.
Anyway if they don’t like the rules they can go and discover their own country and colonise it.
My uncle has lived in a small town called Mareeba in QLD most of his life.
The aboriginal children see being charged with a crime as a badge of honour, why? Because the juvi court is a light plane trip away, and this is the easiest way to get to ride in a plane, it’s not about commiting a crime, it’s about the plane trip, if you bash someone you get free meals and accomodation for a few weeks, would happen more, but no booze in jail.
I have tried very hard to not be racist over the years, but when a friend in his early 20′s gets put into a coma for three weeks by a group (over 13) of 12 year olds because he & his girlfriend were on “their” bridge (the north Ipswich bridge this is) she probably would have been killed if he didn’t hold them off… I have MANY more stories like this about growing up with Aboriginals but my thumb is sore from iPhone typing.
I am very glad to now live in Melb, which seems to be nearly the opposite, 3yrs here and I’ve only been hit/harrassed by white folk!! Would even go so far as saying that Syd/Melbournites have no idea what the rest of Oz is like….
Oh, and f-u Darly Summers, get you and you shit show back in the box they stored you in…
On my travels I’d been to Perth twice. The people I met there made genuinely racist commentary, ‘Boong’s aren’t civilized – if you build them a house they’ll burn it down building a fire instead of using the thermostat’ – that kind of thing. But I hadn’t heard racist commentary against anyone but the aboriginals. I’d even say afro-americans seemed to have quite an attraction on the girls we met in the discos. I guess racism requires close contact in order to work.
#29 amodedoma
Yeah this is true. I found the same thing on my few visits to Perth. Out east, especially Tasmania and Victoria, Aborigine populations were pretty much wiped out and you see very few. Its easy for city folk (like myself) to disregard how strained relations are in other parts of Australia. As you observed, the indigenous folks are usually the most derided.
I do get irked when I hear comments like ‘there’s NO racism in Australia’, normally followed by ‘they probably deserved what they got’. There clearly is racism, but its often more complex than simple minded bigotry (although that exists too).
When Europeans landed on the continent, the gulf between black and white cultures was so great that it was akin to aliens landing flying saucers in Central Park, much more so than even the Spanish landing in the Americas. The native folk had no real developed material culture and the idea of working ‘jobs’ was completely alien to them.
The gulf in cultures still exists today in many parts of the continent, and the so called ‘white guilt’ industry has contributed welfare and subsidies to Aborigines but little understanding or acceptance. Its not a problem you can just fling money at. Aboriginal people also have to want to invest in their own futures.