Shopping centre gives red card to mall rats

Andrew Mathieson
A Geelong shopping centre is targeting the city’s “mall rats” for anti-social behaviour.
Westfield Geelong security guards are handing out warning cards to youths they suspect will cause trouble.
The retail giant says the cards are a preventative measure before calling in police.
But a veteran youth officer said the tactic was an “over reaction”.
Westfield’s corporate affairs manager Julia Clarke said initial trials of the card system had proven successful.
She said the security guards were targeting “groups of kids”.
“In Geelong, some cards have been given out. Not huge amounts but there’s been a few a week at last count,” Ms Clarke said.
“We’ve produced this response to the big issue of youth behaviour.”
The cards list bad behaviour and their consequences, which include arrests, centre bans and eviction.
Security guards can give youths cards for serious acts like engaging in criminal behaviour and threatening or intimidating behaviour but also “causing a nuisance” or “annoying customers”.
Minor disruptions such as running, yelling and walking backwards down the escalator can also incur a card.
“It is a reminder of how to behave is the message we’re sending out to the kids,” Ms Clarke said.
“It is also a guarantee of how we’ll treat them as well.
“It is given when young people look like they are mucking up or about to muck up.”
The latest attempts to curb fears over public safety followed police issuing their own cautions to large groups of youths in central Geelong for loitering.
Ms Clarke admitted that some “mall rats” who given cards were not deliberately misbehaving.
“Sometimes kids just don’t know,” she said.
“It’s not that they are deliberately misbehaving – they forget because they think they’re having fun.”
Barwon Youth executive director Shane Murphy said the cards unfairly made assumptions.
He labelled the cards discriminatory.
“It is really an over reaction,” Mr Murphy said.
“People see groups of young kids coming together and they think negatively.”
Mr Murphy suggested that Westfield should set up a coffee lounge just for youths rather than simply instruct security staff to “disperse large groups”.