Talk:Crime in the Northern Territory

Question about source

What's the source for the statement in the article, that the majority of crime is either alcohol or Aboriginal related?--cjllw | TALK 14:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

That particular part of the article, along with most of the textual content derives from 203.122.214.140 (talk · contribs) who also left the edit summary of "just added some stuff. not referenced. delete or edit if you like. can't be bothered referencing atm". -- Longhair 20:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Right, I just removed the life expectancy paragraph since its pretty wrong. 55 years? wth? See here:

 http://www.abc.net.au/health/healthmap/nt/default.htm
 males - 70.3
 females - 75.2

Or here:

 http://www.ntnews.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,17524509%255E421,00.html
 males - 72.3

I'm to lazy to write a new paragraph plus I don't quite understand what to make of the information presented here:

 http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/d649295089b31db8ca256f6a007a5104?OpenDocument

-- random anon. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.122.208.27 (talk • contribs) .

---

removed the following:

"the majority of crime is alcohol related or in relation to issues surrounding indigenous Australians" - unsourced

and

"The Northern Territory is sparsely populated, with the lowest population per square km of any state or territory in Australia (and one of the lowest in the world), which leads to the general feeling that you can do anything, and that nobody will be able to help you if something happens to you. On average 30 000 people go missing in Australia every year, some of which occur in this isolated area." - so many things wrong with this one

also removed npov tag, as i don't think the article needs it anymore. citations for nt having highest crime rate of any state/territory in australia, darwin highest of any city, and alice springs second highest (plus highest murder rate) would be good though.

What is this?

Crime in regionX... is this a standard template in WP, or is there something truly exceptional here? Medico80 20:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

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Proposed merge from Crime in Alice Springs

There's quite a lot wrong with all of the articles relating to Crime in Australia, but I am proposing that the articles currently named by city each be merged into a state-level article. In each case, the crime statistics and police services relate to the whole state or territory, and with population density outside the major cities being so low, I can't see a case for separate articles for each. I would like to do the same for all of the other states and territories for consistency and in hope of better accuracy. Perhaps better to keep all general discussion on the Crime in Australia talk page? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 04:54, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Merge complete. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:32, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

None of which means that this material is not neutral. Tag has been misapplied it appears. Mark Marathon (talk) 09:23, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Major crimes

What is this section is for? If we are going to list every murder of an Aboriginal by an Aboriginal, it's going to get very long, since according to figures that averages one per two months. But to suggest they aren't major crimes seems racist. Or is this a list of crimes that get major coverage? In which case we are going to have to include lot more rape cases, especially against children. In short, what defines a "major" crime. Since the list includes several solitary murders, it's obviously not head count. Mark Marathon (talk) 03:17, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

I've just relabelled it "Notable crimes" (as per Crime in South Australia) and looked up a few links and added them for some of the older ones and the latest shooting. It shouldn't list every crime listed as "major" as per police definition; I suggest only keeping those represented elsewhere in Wikipedia in some way – either whole article, court case or perpetrator or victim name – which probably means deletion of most of the rest (I haven't got time to check them all now). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:42, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

That's not a bad suggestion, though it kind of encourages WP:COATRACK articles created solely to gain inclusion on the list/ OTOH it's not like this is a heavily edited article/list, and so long as the artciles meet notability guidelines it should be a minor issue. I also have to question what is meant by "crime" here. I've removed one instance where a court found no crime was committed, one instance where the court found there was insufficient evidence to determine if the act ever occurred one instance where the act was deemed perfectly legal by a court. It seems like a list of crimes should include acts that have been accepted by reliable sources to have occurred and that are actually against the law, not allegations and acts that we think ought to be crimes. Ideally I would suggest it should be a list of acts that have been determined to have occurred according to a coroner or court, and a perpetrator only ascribed if they were convicted of the crime. Otherwise we end up with a list full of conspiracy theories, allegations and outrage, which is what we probably have now. Mark Marathon (talk) 07:25, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm, I think where the killings are judged crimes by today's standards, or the acquitted person(s) were acquitted on what is by consensus judged a flimsy evidence, they should remain. In the OJ Simpson case, for instance, a major crime occurred. Even if you think he's innocent, the crime is notable because of his high profile. The Coniston massacre is (a) judged a crime by today's standards (even the police apologised), and (b) there were a series of crimes within the whole sorry story. I would like to see it stay in. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 06:38, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I hear what you are saying, the Coniston massacre is obviously a crime by modern standards. I have three problems with using that as a justification for placing in a sections headed "crimes in the northern territory".

The first is that it clearly violates WP:PRESENTISM, which is really all that needs to be said of the matter. A list can never fully describe an event and distinguish between opinion and fact as required by that policy. Any event included in this list is presented as a crime, even when it was not a crime at the time, which clearly violates the policy.

The second is that all sorts of events are obviously a crime by modern standards. We don't include the Battle of Hastings in a list of crime sin England, even though it clearly was a crime by modern standards. Nor do we include the Roman circuses in a list of Crimes in Italy and so forth. "Judged crimes by today's standards" is a recipe for chaos. Who gets to do the judging? Do we include every instance of an Aboriginal child being circumcised, a soldier being flogged, a child being sent to work or a criminal being hanged, since such acts are clearly crimes under Australia's current legal system? That seems obviously silly and unworkable, yet I can find any number of sources which state that such things were crimes.

The third problem I have is that the list becomes a WP:COATRACK. Instead of being a list of acts that are verified as being crimes by reliable sources, it venue for those who want to portray various past acts as being crimes. Whitlam's handback of Wave Hill has been described as a crime by some. Should editors be able to include that on this list? What about Aboriginal hunting of otherwise protected species? If we open the door to every act that has ever been called criminal in a reliable source, then we will need to include those things, and many others.

"what is by consensus judged a flimsy evidence" is even less workable. If the DPP or jury didn't find the evidence compelling, there obviously there can't be consensus that the evidence was flimsy. The authorities that judge such things disagree. The only way you could possibly get around this is by ignoring the most important viewpoints of the time and, once again, adopting a presentist viewpoint. And once again , this fails WP:PRESENTISM

In the OJ Simpson case, a coroner found that the victims had been murdered, so there is no doubt that a crime had been committed and no disputing that it belongs on a list of crimes. Simpson himself was found to be innocent, but the murder still occurred as a matter of law and fact, the law just doesn't say who committed the murder. As I noted above, a coronial finding of a crime is obviously grounds for inclusion. There can be no dispute that a crime occurred here. A better comparison would be the Rodney King incident, where the officers were (initially) found to be innocent of committing any crime. As a matter of fact and law, no crime had been committed.

If there were acts committed during the Coniston atrocity that were crimes at the time, and adjudged so by a court or coroner, then they should be included, obviously. But if no authority at the time deemed them to be crimes, then as a matter of law and fact no crime was committed. Crime has a specific meaning, if an act didn't violate any law or any subsequent retrospective law, it wasn't a crime. If we want to make this into a list of acts that editors find repugnant, then we can discuss that, but we first need to decide if this is a list if crimes, ie acts that violated the law, or a list of acts that violated no law, but that later were judged to be inappropriate.

In summary, we can't possible include acts that were legal at the time but judged crimes by today's standards without blatantly violating WP:PRESENTISM. There simply isn't the room to go into the level of detail needed to be compliant with that policy. It also runs afoul of WP:COATRACK, since it uses a list of criminal actions a s a coatrack upon which to hang views on the status of past legal acts. It's also fundamentally unworkable to include every instance of an act that is agreed to be a crime by today's laws, for the reasons outlined above.Mark Marathon (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2019 (UTC)