Sixteen-year-old Lee-roy Dixon grew up in the Aboriginal community of Amoongana, just outside of Mparntwe, Alice Springs.
The weather is hot, the population is about 200 people, and with few sporting clubs or playgrounds around, there isn't much to do.
After signing up to a local youth group funded by MacDonnell Regional Council, Lee-roy found a new way to keep busy after school.
"I would come here, do sports, maybe have a little bit of feed and just stick around, help out, and then go home," he told 7.30.
Six years on, he works with the program to help kids in his community keep active through sports and excursions on country.
"I like working here, I like working with the kids," he said.
Young people in Alice Springs have been under a national spotlight after reports of an escalating "youth crime wave" since the alcohol ban — implemented in 2007 by the Howard government and continued by the Labor government — was lifted in July last year.
"It's just silly how they're going on in town, running amuck," Mr Dixon said.
"Those that don't break in are getting blamed for [doing] nothing."
Youth crime wave not just about alcohol
For local business owners such as Lachlan Moulton, who owns an overnight commercial-cleaning business, the safety of staff has become a concern.
"In Alice Springs there's a certain inescapable reality to running a business, particularly after dark in this community," Mr Moulton said.
"We've had staff assaulted, attacked, homes invaded, so we've reached a point of exhaustion with it."
He said the increase in crime rates was also making it hard to attract and retain staff.
According to Northern Territory police data, property damage has increased by 60 per cent and there have also been spikes in alcohol-related violence over the past year.
But Arrernte/Luritja woman Catherine Liddle, who is the CEO of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), said Aboriginal people had been calling for governments to support and implement Aboriginal-led solutions, well before the alcohol ban expired.
"When you look outside in, it's really easy to think that this happened overnight. But the truth is, it didn't," she said.
"Aboriginal voices had been saying for a very long time the lifting of these restrictions is going to happen and yet we have not invested in our communities."
Ms Liddle said the youth crime wave in Alice Springs went beyond alcohol bans and was a result of policy failure, funding cuts to family and youth services, and Aboriginal voices being ignored.
"When we talk about policy failure, we're talking about really big forces like the Intervention, like the defunding of youth services and family wraparound supports," she said.
In 2007, the Howard government introduced the Northern Territory Emergency Response, originally slated to last five years.
The Intervention featured compulsory health checks on Aboriginal children, an increase in policing levels in communities, a blanket ban on alcohol, and displaced Aboriginal-controlled community councils and governance structures.
"These policies have hurt very vulnerable communities and very vulnerable people," Ms Liddle said.
First Nations communities call for more funding
According to William Tilmouth, an Arrernte man and the chair at Children's Ground, the lack of services in remote bush communities plays a role in adding pressure to the crisis in Alice Springs — especially over the Christmas school period when families travel to Alice for the holidays.
"It's exacerbated by the fact that people do come in and out of the service centre that Alice Springs is," he said.
"People have to do their shopping and see medical services … that are not available in remote areas.
"People don't have the money to get back out [bush] and they become what I call the economic prisoners within the confines of Alice Springs," he said.
It is Mr Tilmouth's view that more investment in early education and other youth services in remote communities will help relieve the pressure on Alice Springs.
Local youth programs run by Aboriginal organisations provide mentoring, food and shelter for children after school and they are demonstrating positive results, particularly when it comes to anti-social behaviour.
Outside of Alice, the MacDonnell Regional Council (MRC) funds seven youth programs, including at Amoongana, across 268,329 square kilometres — a region bigger than the state of Victoria.
But a funding shortfall means youth programs are at risk of shutting down after June this year, according to the council's CEO, Jeff MacLeod.
"We've had the same amount of money every year since 2014," Mr MacLeod said.
"Costs go up. You know you can't buy anything today that you could buy for the price that you could in 2014."
In a statement provided to 7.30, the federal government said it fast-tracked a one-off payment of $400,000 to MRC to stay open for the summer school holidays, taking its overall MRC investment this financial year to $2.25 million.
MRC was able to run 700 youth activities across remote Aboriginal communities. And Mr MacLeod said having dedicated programs allowed children to be more engaged in activities after school.
Without increased funding to cover inflation, Mr MacLeod said youth programs would be spread too thin to operate at full capacity and several would have to be shut down.
Mr MacLeod will negotiate for more funding in June this year in a bid to keep the lights on.
He added that the short-term financing model was not ideal.
"Three years in the future would be wonderful," he said.
Business owners like Mr Moulton agree that long-term investment is needed for a lasting impact.
"The way those programs are funded is they need help," Mr Moulton said.
"We all need help and it's a highly necessary component of any solution."
Aboriginal voices not being heard
This week, the NT government will reintroduce alcohol restrictions across Central Australia — something communities can vote to opt out of.
Governments have also committed an extra $250 million to help fund services that focus on youth engagement, health, on-country learning and domestic violence.
But it missed the needs-based funding recommendation that came out of Central Australia regional controller Dorelle Anderson's report released last Tuesday, which she stated was "a matter of priority".
"There is no silver bullet and no one answer and no one driver," Ms Liddle said of the race issues in Alice Springs.
"When you look at all the investigations that have resulted … they all point to poverty.
"And that poverty absolutely is rooted in a lack of self-determination.
"What [does] self-determination mean? It means the ability to go out and make decisions for yourself. That's been completely stripped away."
