Canberrans in the Crime Paranoia charts

videodrome said :

I saw a minor accident in the Dickson carpark a month ago – one car backed into the front of another causing about $1000 worth of damage. There were 2 police cars and 4 cops at that incident. Must have been a slow day.

They were probably all there getting their 1/2 price Maccas.

I saw a minor accident in the Dickson carpark a month ago – one car backed into the front of another causing about $1000 worth of damage. There were 2 police cars and 4 cops at that incident. Must have been a slow day.

sepi said :

Ok – well a friend at work had her car broken into once and spray painted once (she was parking near govvie flats and walking to work). The police told her it was not their problem at all, it was up to the ACT govt.

So out of my two friends with cars broken into, the friend in SA got a far higher level of interest from her local police.

As well, a guy at work had his motorbike stolen from civic, parking outside the canberra centre. The police have asked him to chase up security footage from the mall – isn’t that their job?

As I’ve advised many times on this site, if you (not you specifically, but anybody) are not satisfied with the police response or actions relating to a job, then either query the case officer directly, or make a complaint. If your recovered vehicle is not forensically examined, ask why. If you are asked to chase up CCTV footage, ask why? If you are generally dissatisfied, take it up with the appropriate people.

You’re friend in SA may have had a completely different set of circumstances involved in his/her stolen car. Or maybe they just came across a more diligent officer than the one your other friend dealt with.

Police don’t generally send patrols to stolen vehicle incidents. The reports are taken over the phone, therefore it would be impractical to expect the operator (who may not even be a police officer) to leave the Winchester centre to go searching for CCTV footage.

I saw some youths walking along the street the other day!

Were they wearing baseball caps? Those are the ones you’ve got to watch out for!

Ian said :

……After the last time, I actually got surveyed by a market research company about my satisfaction with my contact with the police. I offered some comment about it would have been nice if the person I spoke to at least feigned being interested in my problem.

Yep, that’s how the Govt deals with crime in this city: get a market research company to see how the public feel about how their crime report was dealt with by the ACT Police.

Ok – well a friend at work had her car broken into once and spray painted once (she was parking near govvie flats and walking to work). The police told her it was not their problem at all, it was up to the ACT govt.

So out of my two friends with cars broken into, the friend in SA got a far higher level of interest from her local police.

As well, a guy at work had his motorbike stolen from civic, parking outside the canberra centre. The police have asked him to chase up security footage from the mall – isn’t that their job?

sepi said :

A friend had a car broken into in their driveway in SA, and rolled down the street and abandoned, and the police came around and took fingerprints from the car. I was amazed. That would never happen here.

Wrong again, but you keep believing that.

I believe many many people have just given up even reporting ‘minor’ incidents in the ACT – nothing tends to be done, so there is not much point.

Are you kidding? Most crimes reported in Canberra would fall under ‘minor’ incidents.

sepi said :

I believe many many people have just given up even reporting ‘minor’ incidents in the ACT – nothing tends to be done, so there is not much point.

Not much point I know, and the crime won’t get solved, but I bothered reporting the 2 minor property crimes against me, if only to help screw up the police’s statistics.

After the last time, I actually got surveyed by a market research company about my satisfaction with my contact with the police. I offered some comment about it would have been nice if the person I spoke to at least feigned being interested in my problem.

andy pandy said :

Yeah Canberra is a really dangerous place I have been bashed 90 times and murdered 4 times this year already.

Correction – this is Canberra, you would have been “manslaughtered” 4 times.

A friend had a car broken into in their driveway in SA, and rolled down the street and abandoned, and the police came around and took fingerprints from the car. I was amazed. That would never happen here.

I believe many many people have just given up even reporting ‘minor’ incidents in the ACT – nothing tends to be done, so there is not much point.

update: WIN News reports 50 cars worth $20k were damaged.
PS. is there some reason why my comment takes hours to moderate?
perhaps the balance of sane outrage has been breached?

When you have 13 car windows smashed in a “secure” parking area in Kingston a couple of days ago and its only reported as 1 incident then you realise the statistics may not be telling you everything. BTW 2 other apartment blocks each had 12 and 14 car windows smashed for petty theft the same night bringing it to a total of 39 break-ins. I’d call that a crimewave in itself. We actually have footage of the 2 vermin who did it. Have a guess how interested the police are?

facet said :

Dear PBO I do not rely on the police at all. What I did do was walk home to get my camera so that I could get some great pictures to post on the RiotACT. Then I realised that the young people involved were of pacific islander appearance and I would be accused of being racist.

You would not have been accused of being racist, photo’s generally do not lie. It could have been the best thing that you could have done in fact. Crimminals are crimminals, it does not matter what colour or creed they are. It’s also crimminal when they use their race or social situation as an excuse.

Yeah Canberra is a really dangerous place I have been bashed 90 times and murdered 4 times this year already.

Dear PBO I do not rely on the police at all. What I did do was walk home to get my camera so that I could get some great pictures to post on the RiotACT. Then I realised that the young people involved were of pacific islander appearance and I would be accused of being racist.

Tooks said :

Jim Jones said :

Paranoia pretty clearly on display above.

Also on display: ill-informed comments from a couple of numpties.

Damn straight – the entire post is full of numpties denying actual statistics in favour of a couple of unreliable anecdotes.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

facet said :

When my home was recently burgled and my big screen TV stolen along with the jewellery my wife inherited from her mother, the police who came to my place offered “counselling”. Perhaps so I could feel a whole lot better about being a victim of crime and overcome my obvious paranoia (they don’t want this showing up in surveys). This is the second time I have had criminal activity directed at me in the last twelve months I will respond differently next time.

How dare they offer counselling to victims of crime; that’s just disgraceful. They didn’t send the CSI team to wrap up the case in 30 minutes either, I bet. Hopeless.

facet said :

It means Canberra’s police force is a joke. They have no interest in property crime and so it is take it easy, but take it!
What the heck, they need to support their drug habit don’t they.

If you think that you can do better than them, then show a bit of initiative and do some local crime prevention yourself.

facet said :

I recently witnessed two youths breaking into Kaleen’s Catholic Primary School (they were trying to lever up a skylight on the roof). I called our police and told them a break in was in progress – their response “Oh maybe we will send a car around in a little while”. No car showed up and I bet no statistics where recorded. The school later erected a very expensive fence so I guess crime does stimulate economic activity – it certainly does not stimulate police activity.

Once again, you could have told the police that you would deal with the matter directly if they did not show up, i bet you would have had a better response.

I think that we are relying on the Police too much and we should look at ourselves to make our communities safer.

Jim Jones said :

Paranoia pretty clearly on display above.

Also on display: ill-informed comments from a couple of numpties.

“Number of people that perceive crime to be problematic per actual reported offence”

They seem to be conflating two barely related factors here…

When my home was recently burgled and my big screen TV stolen along with the jewellery my wife inherited from her mother, the police who came to my place offered “counselling”. Perhaps so I could feel a whole lot better about being a victim of crime and overcome my obvious paranoia (they don’t want this showing up in surveys). This is the second time I have had criminal activity directed at me in the last twelve months I will respond differently next time.

Jim Jones said :

Paranoia pretty clearly on display above.

Not paranoid, just not delusional

We would need more data before concluding that Canberrans are paranoid:

This result could also come about if crime is more evenly spread across suburbs in Canberra compared to other cities. If, say, all crime were concentrated in a few suburbs, most people would express no concern about crime in their neighbourhood. But if crime is spread throughout all suburbs, even if there is less in total, more people will be concerned about crime in their own neighbourhood.

If we knew either (a) how crime is spread throughout the suburbs in Canberra compared with other cities or (b) how strong people’s concerns about crime are rather than just whether they are concerned or not, we could draw more conclusions.

Combined with the other report about Canberrans feeling safe in their houses, but worried more about crimes outside, I’d say that we’re all turning into paranoid bastards who trust noone.

I’m also going with the “it not much point to report it” mob…

OK, someone breaks into your house, you call the coppers, they may show up a few hours later and take a statement. Then that’s it…

If you lucky they may catch the offender (but not recover your stuff) and the offender gets taken into the courts, not a big issue for them as they probably already know the drill.

They then get told how they where very naughty and shouldn’t do it again. The offender is then let off without even a slap on the wrist ready to do it again.

Why bother going through the process?

Paranoia pretty clearly on display above.

Yeah, there is a hell of a lot more crime than the police are aware of and/or give a shit about

I recently witnessed two youths breaking into Kaleen’s Catholic Primary School (they were trying to lever up a skylight on the roof). I called our police and told them a break in was in progress – their response “Oh maybe we will send a car around in a little while”. No car showed up and I bet no statistics where recorded. The school later erected a very expensive fence so I guess crime does stimulate economic activity – it certainly does not stimulate police activity.

It means Canberra’s police force is a joke. They have no interest in property crime and so it is take it easy, but take it!
What the heck, they need to support their drug habit don’t they.

It could indicate a higher level of types of crime that goes unreported in different states when they figure out the police can’t do anything and won’t show up for a couple of days.

I could make the statistics show pretty much anything I wanted them to..