Mr Peterson used the public forum section of Wednesday's council meeting to say there were 5572 crime and vandalism offences in Mount Isa over the last 12 months and it affected every business in the city.

"I was driving past Outback at Isa the other day at 5.30pm and there were kids writing on the walls," Mr Peterson said.

"People have put fences up to secure their property."

Mr Peterson, a former councillor for 12 years and deputy mayor for four, said as the tourist season approached he did not want to see Mount Isa become like "Tennant Creek or other places across Australia".

"I suppose it could be said it is not a Council problem but at the end of the day we could be the city that takes a step forward and see how we can do it better," he said.

Mayor Danielle Slade said Council was taking a proactive approach to the problem including the installation of CCTV cameras across the city, working closely with local and advocating with police minister Mark Ryan to increase police numbers in the city.

The mayor also pointed to council collaborations with government agencies and the work on the Transition to Success program delivered by Queensland's Youth Justice department for young people aged 15-17 involved in the youth justice system or at risk of entering.

"Council is upgrading play areas and sporting facilities to attract more young people to be active, including upgrades to the skate park, the pump track, Splashez, and later this year the Family Fun Park," Cr Slade said.

"Council has made an application for the development of a youth strategy and hopefully that funding may be announced very soon."

READ ALSO:

Youth charged with attacks on cars at Mount Isa Hospital

Winton hails find of 'broken dinosaur killer' croc

Two men accused of flood fund fraud will have court mention in April

Glencore brain damage case set for Supreme Court

New scoreboard for Mount Isa Rugby Union

Committee appointed for Mount Isa Motor Sports

Sign On Expo this weekend

Cr Slade said Council was removing graffiti from its property "where resources allow".

She also said Council was trying to bring all stakeholders in the problem to the table.

"I reached out to the Liquor Accord and asked them to enter into a gentleman's agreement and bring in restrictions similar to the Northern Territory, because we had up to 400 people from the NT camping in the Leichhardt River," she said.

"We've had four or five meetings with NT local government and police about getting people back to country."

Cr Slade said another issue affecting the problem was the housing shortage across the North West and there was overcrowding in some suburbs.

"We've identified this as one of the main reasons for why children are roaming the streets," she said.

"They've got too many people in their homes and they are not feeling safe."

Cr Slade said the state government was looking at providing another 100 houses in the North West.

"This is good news but we obviously need a lot more than that," she said.

Cr Slade said the problem was the census was underestimating the number of indigenous people in Mount Isa and all the funding and police numbers was based on those numbers.

She also said schools needed to do more to ensure all children were registered to attend school.

"A lot of these children have never been registered at school and no one is looking for them - that needs to be addressed, the key to all this is getting them back to school," she said.

"I know the community is frustrated. We need to come together as a community to fix this."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:

DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY? Send letters to the editor or story tips to nwseditorial@austcommunitymedia.com.au