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Updated – Charge is likely to be withdrawn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The boy’s lawyer, Peter Collins, has lobbied WA police for the charges to be withdrawn, but authorities had failed to respond to his request, he said.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.
I wonder if the little shit thought about giving the stolen items back and apologizing to the store owners? Probably not.
He’s probably all indignant thinking that he’s getting hassled because he’s not white. This of course, has nothing to do with stolen property, its about white oppression after all.
Let the kid walk, Australia. Let the world know that people of color can’t be expected to live up to the same laws and standards of behavior, that whites are.
The kid is being charged with receiving stolen candy. That is fucking bullshit. Racism is alive in well in Australia.
Many people may not know that Australia was a penal colony of England, and thousands of men and boys were sent there (“transported”) for similar crimes as petty as this.
Due to the lack of women prisoners sent there, homosexuality became rampant there, a fact much covered up these days.
I would not like to claim Australian ancestry, myself.
#1 RTFA – the kid didn’t steal anything. his friend stole the items, then gave them to him.
He’s 12 – imagine you’re 12 years old, and your buddy comes along and gives you a chocolate bar and a funny sign. Would you immediately question your friend, demanding proof of payment, etc?
#1, George, you are making an awful lot of assumptions about that child. It’s more likely that the adults around him are crying foul and he’s just a pawn in a power struggle between differing opinions of discipline, deterrents and rights.
On the other hand, there is apparently an overrepresentation of indigenous youth in juvenile justice systems of 30% – 40% in western Australia. How can you be so sure that it isn’t because of prejudice on some level?
Bottom line, 12 year olds shouldn’t be treated like a criminal for possession of less than a dollar of stolen property for Christ’s sakes, or you should go to jail yourself? No?… then take back that Bic pen you stole from work, and apologize you cretin.
A story like this must be considered in the context of relative poverty levels: A poor aboriginal stealing a $0.70 item can be thought of as equivalent to a regular white person stealing a Ferrari. So yes, this is a heinous crime. Hopefully they will lock up the thief. Throw the unfit parents in jail aswell. That is, if the thief knows who his parents are.
And you know this is racism because…?
Because of all the other such cases on the web, right? (Hint: There are no others.)
RBG
So when people say that Australia is a continent of criminals, this is what they meant.
7. Whenever liberals don’t like reality, racism is the go-to excuse for everything. Of course this is racism! nothing to do with breaking the law! The criminal is the victim!
#7 RGB
I suspect it’s racism because I live down under and have seen first hand how poorly indigenous people are treated. This would never happen to a white 12 yo.
Besides, hauling a kid out of school and putting them in a jail cell for this is just idiocy.
Oh come on… how many of the people posting these comments arent city boys with white mans guilt! Come and live in the country areas like darwin, Kalgoorlie and Port Headland and see if the aboriginal people are mistreated! We give them a government paycheck every week, free housing, cheap loans, government grants for business enterprise and we also usually sit back and let them booze up on the street being unproductive!
The amount of times aboriginals have gotten away with things is beyond me! Shitting on your lawn or lighting bonfires on your driveway its disgraceful!
I AM NOT RACIST! Some of my closest friends are also aboriginal! But they are the people who have made something of their lives and there privileges of free schooling and university!
This kid probably didnt deserve the punishment yet there is no need to whinge and claim australians are racist! Only someone completely naive of the real situation would claim we are!!!!
#10 Peter
I have one Aboriginal friend. She is a university graduate and a mother of 3. The shit she has had to put up with in her life due to prejudice makes me weep.
#11 honeyman
Some of the shit my white friends have gone through because they were brutally attacked by gangs of aboriginal youths would make you weep just as much…
and some of the shit my aboriginal friends went through because of pressure and abuse by other aboriginal families would shock you
I would like to think that the kid’s race has nothing to do with how he was treated. Can someone tell me otherwise?
Well, at least we all learned one important lesson today. George is a complete fucking moron.
#12 Peter
A sad state of affairs, to be sure. I’m not accusing you of racism, or that all Australians are racist. Far from it. I am saying I have seen racial prejudice directed at aboriginal people WITH MY OWN EYES and have talked to aboriginal people who have been marginalised and abused simply because they are of aboriginal descent. I can only infer that this freddo fiasco is along similar lines due the petty nature of the crime and the disproportionate law enforcement.
Why do you claim that there is NO racism from white Australians? None at all?
#15 honeyman
first of all… you live in australia right? and in a city right?
most people in the city dont have a prejudice against aboriginal people.. compared to those in rural areas where they need to deal with the lower ends of aboriginal society..
What i am saying is that the government is not prejudice to aboriginals in fact they are very well looked after… except that alot in rural areas will spend there money on booze when they get it… i have witnessed this my whole life living in rural areas!
Maybe it is the dole system which is to blame.. as there are whites who do the same thing! Its a tough problem but racism is not as much of the problem as some people may want to think… Putting the racism badge on everything is a copout to aboriginals and white australians… there are bigger issues to deal with
#15 Peter
Yep I’m a Melbournian and I agree with most of what you say. It very easy to sit back and judge from a big city when we really have no idea what’s happening in the bush, and not all accusations directed at aboriginal people are racist. But I’m not afraid to call out racism when I see it and hear it, and I strongly suspect this is.
Hey i live in melbourne now as well!
I believe that this was a case of racism as well, yet im sure that these cops get so sick of kids dodging them and vandalising stuff that they just made an example out of him… poor kid!
I just get sick of other people saying that all australians are racist assholes who hate aboriginals and treat them badly(especially when americans get on the bandwagon (native indians anyone?))… Its a sad state of affairs and my heart goes out to this kid and many others who for some reason cant break the mould and who are made victims by racist australians… black or white!
By the way W.A cops are absolute bloody cowboys! The way they go about enforcing the law is brutal! No surprise this kid was so roughly treated!
#18 Peter
The Vic police are much nicer. They just shoot you and then cover up rather than arresting and humiliating you 😉
Hahaha.. so true! was it vic police who shot that kid to death because he had a knife on him???
W.A cops will also get so frustrated by their own crappy detective work that they will just frame you by planting evidence in your home.. then shoot you for resisting arrest! LOL
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.