Child protection advocates and legal experts are concerned about what the Alice Springs youth curfew will mean for children with complex needs who may not have a safe home to be returned to.
It comes at the end of a dramatic week in the Central Australian town, when riots outside the Todd Tavern and at an Aboriginal town camp led to the NT government triggering a youth curfew. The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency has voiced its concerns that children will be returned to unsafe homes, or forced into wandering around the town's outer suburbs.Deputy chief executive Leeanne Caton said NAAJA wanted to know how police would manage the removal of children from the streets who didn't have a safe home to be returned to at night.
"If kids aren't home for a particular reason, they're not going to go home because there's curfew in the CBD," Ms Caton said. However, both NAAJA and the children's commissioner said they hadn't been involved in those early conversations.