African gang crime problem caused by PARENTS who don't set boundaries and have too many kids says psychiatrist who works with troubled youths

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A psychiatrist who works with troubled youths says South Sudanese teenagers who join gangs often have parents with many children who fail to set boundaries.

Tanveer Ahmed has worked with African refugees who have fled the Sudanese civil war.

His observation comes as Melbourne's west is gripped by a violent crime spree involving South Sudanese youths and other young Africans who have joined the Apex and Menace to Society gangs.

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Psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed says African youths in gangs are often traumatised by war

Dr Ahmed's observation follows this police confrontation at Tarneit Central in Melbourne's west

Dr Ahmed, who has written several books on Australian immigration, said African youths often came from families, with seven to eight children, that struggled to adjust to a new culture and didn't set boundaries.

'Troubled, disengaged or irritable parents are more likely to raise emotionally unstable children,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Part of the youth's problems are a generational split where they feel their elders have no understanding of growing up in Australia. 

'It is complicated further by a parenting culture that does not place a strong emphasis on setting strong boundaries for boys, unlike the girls who are often closely controlled. 

Dr Ahmed said African youths often lacked parental discipline (Tarneit Central pictured)

'These attitudes among some Africans I see are similar to many Arab families.'

Dr Ahmed said youth refugees from African countries had also experienced the trauma of war. 

'Some of my patients describe having seen atrocities like severed heads and vicious torture that we can barely imagine,' he said. 

'It is naive to think this kind of history doesn't present challenges when trying to integrate into Australia.'

The Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit was trashed three days after Christmas last year

Dr Ahmed, who was born in Bangladesh and grew up in a Muslim family in western Sydney, says South Sudanese youths were less likely to turn to terrorism than a small number of troubled Islamic youth in Sydney's west.

'We are lucky that South Sudan is the region that has a majority Christian population,' he said.

'If they were of Muslim descent their anti-social behaviour might be magnified with terrorist motivations dramatically increasing their threat.'

However, like Arab youth in Sydney's west, African gangs in Melbourne are partially motivated by American gangster rap culture, Dr Ahmed said. 

'Just as there is a jihadi-street feel that combines some symbols of Islamism with gangsta-rap in videos of Australians who travelled to Syria, African youth are also heavily invested in the language and bravado of American rap culture that can encourage protest against authorities,' he said.

'It is unhelpful however to blame rap music.'

Werribee in Melbourne's west resembled a war zone in December as African youths threw rocks at police

On Wednesday last week, Daily Mail Australia witnessed three African teenagers spitting at police as they were arrested  at the Tarneit Central shopping mall in Melbourne's west. 

The flare up involved African teens and up to 20 officers.

Just three days after Christmas, in the same suburb, African youths calling themselves Menace to Society trashed the Ecoville Community Park, smashing furniture, windows and walls and spraying 'MTS' graffiti.  

Only days before Christmas, 'MTS' graffiti was also scrawled on an AirBnB party house at Werribee, also in Melbourne's west.

Rocks were also pelted at police forcing them to retreat from the house, when more than 100 youths of primarily South Sudanese appearance turned on them.

On Boxing Day, a police officer was kicked in the face when he tried to arrest a 16-year boy at the Highpoint Shopping Centre at Maribyrnong.

In June, a man was struck in the head with a tomahawk when a gang of 15 men burst into a barber shop at nearby Footscray and started brawling.