Crime has rison in seven out of ten postcode areas. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: News Corp Australia
CRIME has risen in more than seven in every 10 postcodes across the state in the past four years.
A Herald Sun investigation has found recorded crimes have
more than doubled in one in six postcodes in the past four years, and
more than tripled in one in 11.And crimes against the person, including rapes, sex attacks and assaults, have jumped tenfold or more in some communities.
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Victoria Police was due to release the latest quarterly crime figures this week but controversially decided to withhold the data until after Saturday’s election.
However, the Herald Sun can reveal that crime reports statewide have risen 18.3 per cent in the four years to June 30, according to crime data for every postcode purchased by the Herald Sun from Victoria Police.
Herald Sun Crime Statistics
Search Now
Welcome to the Herald Sun Crime Statistics database. Use the menu and tools above to search for statistics for a particular crime across the state or within a location.Police command says the rise is driven by family violence reports, an increase in crimes being detected due to the addition of 1700 police and 940 PSOs in the past four years, and greater policing of offences such as breaches in bail and intervention orders.
But Chief Commissioner Ken Lay believes still more can be done and wants to discuss modernising his force with the incoming government.
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“The Chief Commissioner (has) argued strongly that we need a modern police force that is responsive to the changing needs of its people,” his spokeswoman Lisa Beechey said.
“To achieve this we need a much more flexible model which allows us the freedom to deploy our police members where they are needed, when they are needed.”
Police Association secretary Ron Iddles told the Herald Sun a lack of frontline police was at the root of rising crime rates.
“Without a doubt, the problem is a lack of police — we have a severe shortage of first-response police officers,” Mr Iddles told the Herald Sun.
. Picture: Jason Sammon
“If this doesn’t happen then we expect to see these crimes to keep increasing,” Mr Iddles said.
“Currently the ratio of first-response police to population is 102 for every 100,000 Victorians. In some areas such as Wyndham, Whittlesea and Casey, this ratio is less than half and a disgrace.
“A case in point is Greater Geelong. Calls for police assistance has soared from 39,000 to 90,000 in three years. The area desperately needs an extra 30 first-response officers now to cope with this huge upsurge in demand for police response”.
Mr Iddles called on both parties to tell voters what their policy is but as the last week of the campaign begins neither party was willing to tell the Herald Sun if they will fund extra police.
According to the postcode crime data, Bushfield north of Warrnambool has the state’s lowest crime rate of less than three crimes per 1000 residents in four years, while five rural areas had no crimes reported in 2013/14.
Wattle Glenn was Melbourne’s safest suburb, with 171 crimes in four years.
Outside the CBD, city fringe town Wollert and Ballarat suburb Sebastopol recorded the highest crime rates of almost one crime for every two residents for the past four years.
The most crime prone postcodes per head of population also include Fitzroy, Campbellfield, Beaufort, Collingwood, South Melbourne and Geelong _ all with more than one crime for every five residents.
A ‘CALLOUS’ CULTURE HAS TAKEN OVER
ANTI-violence activist Bill McCormack believes a more callous culture has taken over our streets, particularly among young men who strike out while drunk.
His son, Shannon, was killed by a single punch to the head in Melbourne’s CBD in 2007, and the culprit has never been identified. .
Although Victoria Police has worked hard to curb alcohol-fuelled assaults, Mr McCormack says young men continue to strike first and think later.
Bill McCormack with a photo of his
son Shannon who died after being punched outside a city nightclub in
2007. Picture: Andy Brownbill
And he says a system similar to the Northern Territory’s now scrapped alcohol register, where customers who had alcohol-related convictions were banned from buying alcohol, was a good start.
``I’d really like see Northern Territory-style alcohol banning orders introduced,’’ he said.
``What it does is it targets the people causing the problems, who bash people, including women.’’
Mr McCormack has supported minimum 10-year sentencing reforms introduced by the Coalition for those found guilty of single-punch assaults without warning causing death.
He said the rise in crime figures for crimes against the person — including assaults and sex attacks — was reflective of a lack respect ingrained in our youth.
``When I was a kid we learned etiquette and manners at school,’’ he said.
``A lot of kids don’t have it now. Respect for other people needs to be brought back into our schools.’’
He said witnesses to the left-hook punch that killed his son had told how his attacker and others stepped over his son’s prone body as he lay on the ground.
CCTV footage outside the former QBH nightclub has not conclusively identified the perpetrator.
Mr McCormack has campaigned for better CCTV cameras since his son’s death and also believes people have been desensitised by violent computer games that depict graphic assaults.
theaustralian.com.au 23 Nov 2014
Corporate criminals keeping the truth from the general populous.
Victoria Police - is this an organisation that you can really trust?
As per article:
Victoria Police was due to release the latest quarterly crime figures this week but controversially decided to withhold the data until after Saturday’s election.
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