The moment NSW's youth crime wave shocked top cop

The Age

08-06-2025

'My heart goes out to our police facing the dilemma of trying to protect the community and enforce the law at the same time in what is more often than not youth with complex backgrounds.'
Pisanos had deployed a disruptive taskforce, known as Operation Soteria, which turns anti-gangland tactics against ringleaders of violent, repeat-offending youth gangs.
One of the boys in the Bourke crash was a Soteria target, who had tried to separate himself but been pulled back into the mix.
'It's a deadly business, and the stakes are high,' Pisanos said.
Teenagers are stealing guns, leading police on high-speed chases, and even helping in underworld hits – all for online clout – in a shocking crime wave across Sydney and the NSW regions.
But as police lock up ringleaders, and services try to reach vulnerable youths, indifferent social media giants are refusing to do their part to end the violence.
Youth crime has been changing over the decade. Car theft is up 160 per cent, domestic violence and sexual crimes have spiked by about 30 per cent, and residential break-and-enters have risen by 15 per cent.
But some cohorts of repeat offenders are also becoming increasingly violent, according to a NSW parliamentary inquiry into community safety, which released its recommendations last week.
Some are considered so dangerous that support programs are refusing to take them in.
Pisanos rattles off programs he's been plugging police into – Youth Action Meetings, PCYC, even the NRL, to help lower-risk teenagers cut ties with the violent criminal influences Soteria is targeting.
'We know we can't police our way out of the deeper issues, but we have to balance community safety,' Pisanos said.
'No PCYC program will help some of these people who have entrenched violent behaviour.'
This week a school cleaner in Moree was allegedly confronted by two teenagers, one armed with a tomahawk, who robbed her for her car. They allegedly crashed the vehicle minutes later.
Three days earlier, also in Moree, a group of teenagers allegedly broke into a home and stole a ute. Police threw road spikes under the speeding vehicle and grabbed the 14-year-old driver, along with his three passengers aged 14, 12, and 11.
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Social media video, obtained by the Herald, shows children in another high-speed chase in the state's west, blasting rap music in a stolen car as sirens flash behind them.
In yet another video, children point hunting rifles at one another and throw gang signs with the message '2830 on top' in an apparent reference to the Dubbo postcode.
A third video shows children flashing knives at a terrified couple in bed during a break-and-enter.
The common thread is what police have come to call 'post and boast', where youngsters film and share their criminal exploits online.
A police delegation last year showed such videos to the foreign tech companies that run social media in Australia, asking to expand the definition of 'harmful content'.
'The videos weren't at the extreme end of horror, but they were at the extreme end of influence,' Pisanos said.
'This is the stuff that influences lives and decisions and, ultimately, community safety.'
One video showed teenagers in a high-end Mercedes, stolen from Sydney's east, hitting 280km/h in a police chase before crashing.
But because most post-and-boast videos didn't show actual violence, the tech companies concluded they do not breach their terms of use.
'They're just not at the table, it's challenging,' Pisanos said.
Instead, police are moving their own technology – facial recognition and other secretive software – to monitor social media in real-time.
The videos aren't just used to boost notoriety; they have a retraumatising effect on victims and a copycat effect on susceptible followers, Pisanos said.
'We are seeing extreme right-wing groups recruiting young men through hypermasculine messaging, and see it play out in this violence,' Pisanos said.
'It's absolutely chilling. And it's not just kids in Brewarrina or Dubbo or Moree, it's kids in the eastern suburbs.'
Last week, police charged a 16-year-old boy with delivering a 'kill car' to a hit squad in Guildford.
Police allege the car was to be used by an underworld gang – a fully loaded assault rifle, pistol, and jerry can were stashed inside.