Former streetkid Delphine Jamet believes a curfew will not deter young people from going to Northbridge at night. Ms Jamet has written a book about her experiences as a homeless 17 year old. Northbridge features prominently throughout her 120-page account. Now 21, Ms Jamet said youth were drawn to the entertainment precinct and one of their favourite pastimes was playing games with police. A curfew would simply raise the stakes.
"Kids always have played games with police and they always will," Ms Jamet said. "There is no way they are going to get everyone out." Ms Jamet, who is studying for her TEE, said she had once run away from police when they tried to apprehend her using their powers under the Child Welfare Act. Friends' experience had made her concerned about the policy of taking children out of Northbridge and home to abusive environments. Petty crime, fighting and alcohol were part and parcel of life in Northbridge, particularly among big groups. "Some nights, you get this atmosphere that's just so violent and everyone goes around fighing," Ms Jamet said. "There is a kind of a popularity status when people fight." She said the juvenile caution system needed to be overhauled because it did not provide enough incentive for youth to stop reoffending. Many people she knew were happy to play up because they enjoyed spending time at children's detention centres.
The West Australian, Saturday June 28 2003.
Much of what teenager Delphine Jai-Neve has to say about fixing the Northbridge problem is far from earth-shattering or unachievable. But from the mouth of a reformed streetkid with the background and "cred" to understand the troublemakers involved, her words and ideas take on a new perspective. Delphine has lived on the streets across three state borders, is well known to city patrol police and still mixes with young people forced into a life of crime for survival. So it was with some authority that the writer of Streetkid In The City, a book detailing what it is like to live on Perth's streets, put pen to paper again to air her views on Northbridge. Delphine created and emailed a nine page document entitled The Future of Perth, to politicians, youth workers, teachers and agencies with the power to make changes. "I just thought that I'd get it out - everyone talks a lot but nobody does a lot," she said.
She firmly believes in zero tolerance for juvenile crime but she thinks teenagers need an incentive to leave Northbridge at night so adults can reclaim the precinct. She would also scrap cautions for juvenile criminals, provide entertainment districts for minority groups and enforce community work orders rather than send young people into detention - an option she believed was like a holiday. Delphine said detention provided no incentive for a streetkid to give up crime when the punishment meant access to computer games, television and importantly, free meals. "It can be a better life for them," she said of detention, Breaking the "undesirable" cycle is tough - even for someone determined like her. She has a record of minor offences, but said her worst crime was simply running from police.
Delphine has joined adventure clubs but admitting hanging out at Northbridge and playing "chasey" with police officers was "part of the fun" that she still enjoyed. By her own admission, maturity is a slow process and her personal battle to move on and up in life was progressing slowly. But she believes her ideas and life experiences would make her an ideal youth worker.
Guardian Express, November 11 2003.
At 17 Delphine Jai-Neve was living on Perth's streets. A rebellious streak and the bright light of Northbridge led her to leave home and look for adventure. She spent her days riding around the streets on her bike before Centrelink-funded, alcohol-fuelled nights often left her in a semi-conscious state. Often she wrote down her observations, recording the stories of other streetkids during her 18 months on the streets. When she had enough material, she sent her manuscript to a publisher. Her book Streetkid In The City, was published in 2001.
Miss Jai-Neve admits she was a troublemaker and a "pest" to city police, though she never committed any serious crimes. Her life changed again after she was found one night unconsious from drinking too much alcohol. Money she had earned from the book gave her enough to start renting a small unit in West Perth. She spent most of 2002 struggling with her alcohol addiction and at the beginning of 2003 enrolled in Year 11 at Cyril Jackson Senior Campus with her sights set on becoming a youth worker. Now 21, she said part of her vision was to make Northbridge a safe and youth-friendly area. "You can hear people whinge about Northbridge," she said, "but when it comes to doing something about it, they are too absorbed in their own lives. I want to make a diffference."
Still riding her bike around Northbridge on Friday and Saturday nights, she said it was easy to dismiss streetkids as nuisances but many had not had the opportunity to be constructive in their lives. She said she knew too many young people who chose to commit crimes so they would be sent to a detention centre, which guaranteed them a meal and a safer alternative than going home. Positive alternatives to punishment, such as getting young people involved in their community were needed for those who knew only a life of crime. It was also imperative that politicians listened to the views of young people. Miss Jai-Neve said her goal was to start 19 companies - that's how many ideas she has - by the time she is 30, including a recording studio for indigenous artists, a modelling agency for "non-mainstream" people, and a website to help Aboriginal artists sell their paintings online. "I want to help other people and get some support about what positive changes we can make to the city," she said.
The Sunday Times, December 14 2003.
A former streetkid turned author says land created by the sinking of the Northbridge rail line should be named "Aboriginal Town". Delphine Jai-Neve, 20, says cities all over the world have Chinatowns and other ethnically based precincts. But as far as she knows, there is no place in Australia that acknowledges this country's own indigenous minority. However, Perth deputy lord mayor Bert Tudori has come out strongly against the concept, predicting it would be an expensive social welfare failure. "The only way to solve antisocial behaviour in Northbridge is to pay off Aboriginal elders to keep their people out of the area, the way mining companies do," he told the Voice.
Ms Jai-Neve is unfazed by the opposition and says she has the support of the Nyoongar Patrol, with whom she's consulted widely. She hopes to study juvenile justice at Mount Lawley Tafe this year and says an Aboriginal Town would be better than the curfew in solving inner-city problems. "It could consist of kitchens with Nyoongars serving up traditional cooking, live music and entertainment, workshops to build boomerangs and didgerdoos for the general public, art galleries and a Nyoongar language school. "There are so many cultural places in Northbridge and the city for foreign communities but apart from the Yirra Yaakin Noongar Theatre, there's almost nothing for our indigenous people."
The 20 year old recalls the days when she played cat and mouse with police and says she came to know many Nyoongars, in particular young people. "From what I have seen on the streets, young Nyoongars need more confidence in themselves," she told the Voice. "They seem to lack that, which is why they like hanging out in big groups." And she rejects any suggestion the precinct would become a no-go zone for non-Aboriginal people, as Sydney's Redfern did 30 years ago, and turn into an out-of-sight, out-of-mind ghetto. Instead, she says it would offer jobs for Aboriginal people and the chance to showcase indigenous culture to locals and tourists. "People are whinging all the time about Northbridge and Aboriginals and youth problems, but when it actually comes down to it, they don't want to do anything. We owe it to Aboriginal people," Ms Jai-Neve says. "Obviously you can't help someone who does not want to be helped. But there are a lot out there who do want help. You just have to give them the opportunity."
The Voice News, Friday 16 January 2004.
Delphine Jai-Neve works tirelessly campaigning for young people who have slipped through the cracks, lobbying the government on its Northbridge policy and advocating several projects to benefit inner city youth - all at the age of 20. As a 17 year old, Delphine found herself needing to escape a trouble home life. Enticed by the mystery of an underworld she knew little about, she became a streetkid, calling Forrest Place and the city streets her home. "It was a different, new world," she says. "I didn't know anything about it. I had a lot of friends who were on the streets at the time and I was drinking heavily. It just seemed the alternative choice really."
Delphine has been writing non-stop from the age of nine, scribbling out manuscripts in notebooks while spending her life avoiding the police and sleeping under cardboard. When she pitched the idea for a book, Streetkid In The City, to publisher Allen & Unwin, they said yes before it was even finished. The book was published in 2001 and while it wasn't a blockbuster, it sold enough to set her up and get her off the streets. The text is now often used in high school curriculum. She used the opportunity to turn her life around. Delphine is determined to make a difference and is now working on several protects to improve the quality of life for city youth. One such project aims to develop a youth centre where youth can meet and attend courses, which may improve their chances of gaining employment. In order to get the project off the ground, Delphine has researched potential land, costs, education programs, schedules and has also started lobbying various groups around the city for advice and support. Having experienced life and social injustice from a rare perspective when she was living on the streets, Delphine says she wouldn't change the time for anything. "Half of my ideas wouldn't have come if I hadn't been on the streets," she says. "I'm more aware of the situation other people face, instead of the mainstream life. Very few people see the non-mainstream kids as just running around - they see them as groups and gangs, always troublemakers - but they don't see the problems that I've seen."
Scoop Magazine, Winter Edition 2004.
Lotterywest 25 Inspirational West Australians Award.
Politicians have labelled the Northbridge curfew a great success, but a former streetkid said the policy addressed only part of the after-hours problem for underage people. One year after the controversial curfew came into place, a report showed the crime in the Northbridge area had decreased, less young people were getting into trouble and more resources were being used to follow-up children in need. Premier Geoff Gallop said the curfew had achieved "great success" in dealing with young people at risk. "It is encouraging to see crime statistics in the area have dropped and the feedback from local businesses continues to support the fact that antisocial behaviour from young people have diminished," he said.
But youth activist Delphine Jai-Neve, a reformed streetkid who works with several agencies to help make the city better for young people, said there had been positive and negative outcomes. "It is good because it seems to be helping, but it is bad because the government has not given young people a place of their own in Northbridge," she said. Ms Jai-Neve believed the incentive of a free lift home, or a trip to well-equipped youth detention centres, was still encouraging youngsters to come into Perth just before midnight. She said more resources should be directed to the Noongar patrol service. "Seeing a whole bunch of young people hanging around together is intimidating, especially for police," she said.
Dr Gallop said the Government was developing a series of acitivity programs for indigenous children and teenagers, along with Aboriginal child health initiatives. Since the curfew was introduced on June 26 last year, 961 contacts have been made, involving 529 children. Of those, police have spoken to just 8 per cent three or more times. "If we could turn just one child around from a life of despair, I would consider the Northbridge curfew a success," Dr Gallop said. "Every one after that becomes a huge bonus."
Guardian Express, Tuesday 6 July 2004.
