By Matt Garrick, ABC News
Rioters outside the Todd Tavern in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. Photo: Screenshot / TVNZ
Australia's largest Aboriginal legal service is pushing for more detail on exactly how much power the police have in removing children from the streets of Alice Springs.
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 Northern Territory government triggering a youth curfew.
The curfew means children are not allowed on the streets between 6pm and 6am without a valid reason, for the next fortnight, as the NT government bids to curb youth crime over the Easter break.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler said police would take people under the age of 18 - who are seen out in the town centre during curfew - "home or to a safe place".
The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) 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 did not have a safe home to be returned to at night.
"We're still waiting to hear what those powers are," she said.
"As to when they can pick up the kids, and where are they taking them to, and what if it's back to an unsafe environment?
"We don't have the facilities or the capacity to accommodate people who are in this situation, the children are in this position because of whatever else is going on in their lives."
Northern Territory Children's Commissioner Shahleena Musk described the curfew as "unfair and unwarranted".
"The [office of the children's commissioner] is concerned that the scope and terms of the emergency declaration has not been made clear," Musk said in a statement.
"Equally, the new powers and what they mean for children, young people and their families has not been communicated in a way that can be easily understood."
Caton said NAAJA believed the curfew, which only covers the town's centre, would push crime caused by disaffected young people out into the outlying suburbs.
"If kids aren't home for a particular reason, they're not going to go home because there's curfew in the CBD," Caton said.
Child protection advocate Natalie Hunter said children on the streets of Alice Springs mainly came from complex backgrounds.
"Some of these children are homeless, some of these children are through the child protection system, that are wandering through the streets," Hunter said.
Authorities defend curfew powers
At a press conference on Thursday, Lawler said the curfew was triggered after "sound legal advice".
However, both NAAJA and the children's commissioner said they hadn't been involved in those early conversations.
"Disappointingly, neither the commissioner nor [her office] staff were consulted prior to the decision to declare an emergency situation and curfew," Musk said.
Police Commissioner Michael Murphy said, however, that he had been working with the children's commissioner.
He also said the "fact that the curfew exists doesn't mean we're going to start locking up kids" despite conceding the powers could lead to the arrest of children.
"It is an offence not to obey a direction under the act," Murphy said.
"It's not our preferred course of action, there are other ways, usually just through conversation we can convince the child."
Murphy said there were plans in place if a child's home was not safe for them.
"Then we need to find another safe place, and that's the work that Territory Families have been helping us, the police, with a co-responder model, and it's actually been having a bit of an impact."
The curfew will be in place for both Easter and the NT's upcoming school holiday period.
This story was first published by the ABC.