ACT Policing don't want to know about crime?

Perhaps next time, you should say a ten grand pushie was taken from you letter box?

jase! said :

Kalfour said :

I’ve reported a house break-in, two car break-ins, and a minor assault. For each of these, the police have told me ‘there’s not enough to go on’.
They wouldn’t even come to the house to look for fingerprints.

I remember calling to report the theft of a motorcycle many years ago and was told here is your job number give it to your insurance. When I asked them to come check the nice fingerprints on my freshly washed car (the bike was parked behind the car) I was told it wasn’t going to happen. It did annoy me as the Police Forensics Station wagon used to be parked 4 spots up from mine when the guys took it home most nights

I didn’t even get a job number. They basically just told me that it wasn’t their problem.

Crimestoppers might give you more satisfaction. As you didn’t actually need police attendance that would have been the better number to call. They can take your report and it’s logged in a database so that is a pattern of behaviour starts to emerge, they can allocate some resources.

I feel sorry for the police and the crappy jobs they have to do. I have to call them out semi regularly for an alcoholic neighbour who can’t function. She really needs to be in care but instead she wanders around barefoot in winter and screams at shadows. I call them for “welfare checks” and I know it’s not fair for them to have to deal with her but I’m sure as sh-t aren’t equipt to deal with her level of dysfunction. Whenever I’ve called they’ve visited her within 5 minutes and an ambulance often follows.

Kalfour said :

I’ve reported a house break-in, two car break-ins, and a minor assault. For each of these, the police have told me ‘there’s not enough to go on’.
They wouldn’t even come to the house to look for fingerprints.

I remember calling to report the theft of a motorcycle many years ago and was told here is your job number give it to your insurance. When I asked them to come check the nice fingerprints on my freshly washed car (the bike was parked behind the car) I was told it wasn’t going to happen. It did annoy me as the Police Forensics Station wagon used to be parked 4 spots up from mine when the guys took it home most nights

LSWCHP said :

What does LHPSWC think?

Well, I’m astounded that anybody would want to know what I think about anything, so thank you very much for asking.

My take on this is that it’s disappointing but not really surprising because you get what you pay for.

We, as a community, have to allocate public funds to a variety of competing things such as policing, physical infrastructure, public transport, education etc. Even public art works.

Overall I think the ACT cops do a great job with what they have, but they don’t appear to have the resources to be able to deal with crime of this nature among the general low-level noise of assaults, burglaries and other such crime. The sad thing is that while such crime may be considered “low-level” by some, to the victims it can be very high level indeed. I’ve been both assaulted and burgled and it’s horrific.

My children were the victim of mail theft a few years ago and it really, really angered me. Christmas gifts from my parents to my kids, including some substantial lumps of cash, simply disappeared into the grimy hands of some thieving mongrel. It was a really scummy act on the part of whoever did it. I got pretty much the same reaction from the cops as the OP. In the long run, the effect of this is that there are those laws that are enforced, and those that get an eye-roll when they are reported.

Until we as members of the community are prepared to cough up more cash to fund more cops on the street I suspect that this is as good as it gets. I’m not saying it’s right, just that it is what it is.

You’ve hit the nail on the head there for we get what we pay for and without appropriate resources effective policing is compromised.The same could be said of the judiciary even though many there have been accused of poor performance and inefficiency.

Mysteryman said :

Tooks said :

Don’t like the service, put in a complaint. Although having police come out, collect mail from you, then return it to its owners, seems an inefficient use of resources.

You’re right. They’d better more effective booking speeding motorists. After all, that’s the only offense that matters in the ACT. Right?

Yeah, in between finishing the two or three briefs of evidence they have at any one time, managing their current workload, attending court, attending burglaries, domestic disturbances, shoplifting, other minor theft, property damage, traffic complaints, neighbourhood disputes, assaults, robberies, car crashes, visiting schools, breach order jobs, suspicious person reports, sexual assaults, suspicious vehicle reports, proactive patrols of trouble spots, stolen cars, recovered stolen cars, mental health incidents, hospital deaths, house deaths, arsons, check welfare incidents, check premises incidents…taking a laser out would be quite relaxing.

I’ve reported a house break-in, two car break-ins, and a minor assault. For each of these, the police have told me ‘there’s not enough to go on’.
They wouldn’t even come to the house to look for fingerprints.

However, I called them once to report that there was a cow walking down Ginninderra drive, reported abandoned vehicles, and other non-criminal things, and they’ve always followed them up.
I’m pretty unimpressed generally.

In future, lie and say your mail was stolen. Or ask the people whose letters were ripped to report it.

What does LHPSWC think?

Well, I’m astounded that anybody would want to know what I think about anything, so thank you very much for asking.

My take on this is that it’s disappointing but not really surprising because you get what you pay for.

We, as a community, have to allocate public funds to a variety of competing things such as policing, physical infrastructure, public transport, education etc. Even public art works.

Overall I think the ACT cops do a great job with what they have, but they don’t appear to have the resources to be able to deal with crime of this nature among the general low-level noise of assaults, burglaries and other such crime. The sad thing is that while such crime may be considered “low-level” by some, to the victims it can be very high level indeed. I’ve been both assaulted and burgled and it’s horrific.

My children were the victim of mail theft a few years ago and it really, really angered me. Christmas gifts from my parents to my kids, including some substantial lumps of cash, simply disappeared into the grimy hands of some thieving mongrel. It was a really scummy act on the part of whoever did it. I got pretty much the same reaction from the cops as the OP. In the long run, the effect of this is that there are those laws that are enforced, and those that get an eye-roll when they are reported.

Until we as members of the community are prepared to cough up more cash to fund more cops on the street I suspect that this is as good as it gets. I’m not saying it’s right, just that it is what it is.

If they don’t record it its not a statistic…

Policing by the numbers, very similar to hospital waiting times and ER times by the numbers: they’re all improved by the way to collect the numbers

I’m surprised the cops aren’t interested in possible identity theft.

peebus said :

…..I simply wanted to make a report so they knew about it, and if they received multiple reports of it maybe then they could do a patrol every now and then – but this wasn’t my explicit request.

Sounds completely reasonable to me.

When I used to do overnight work, we’d semi-often get the angry, drunk and disorderly hurling abuse and objects at our windows, threatening us, damaging property etc.

Can anyone guess how many times the police bothered to show up, let alone do anything?

Lookout Smithers said :

What was it that convinced you that a crime had been committed here? A neighbours claims wouldn’t have been enough to rule out the owner of the mail may in fact be responsible for it.

It could have been the fact that the torn open mail from ~5 units was strewn across the parkland behind their unit block. Or the fact that it has happened multiple times in the same place. Or the fact that it happened to numerous units along my street. Or lastly the fact that when I returned the mail to its owners they were just as surprised as I was.

Again, where did I say that I wanted police attendance? I didn’t. I simply wanted to make a report so they knew about it, and if they received multiple reports of it maybe then they could do a patrol every now and then – but this wasn’t my explicit request.

For the record caf, this is happening in Tuggeranong – I’d rather not specify which particular suburb though.

FXST01 said :

Jim Jones said :

chewy14 said :

Jim Jones said :

Stakeout the mailbox!!!

Nah booby trap it with explosives. That’ll learn em

Not enough police involvement. I don’t think that the OP will be happy until there’s around the clock surveillance of all mailboxes within a 50 km radius of the tampered mail.

I call ‘operation uselesswasteoftimeandmoney’

Or Operation SKYWHALE.

Operation ionlylikeartwhenitlookslikesomethinganditsreallycheapthatonepictureofdogsplayingpokerwasgood

Apparently, as I have found out first hand, if your neighbor’s home intruder alarm is activated the police aren’t interested either, even if the thing is blaring away at 1 in the morning. They told me to investigate if there was any evidence of forced entry and beyond that to leave it up to the monitoring company. Considering there wasn’t a sticker on the blue strobe light and no security vehicles came it could have made an easy target for anyone, expect for the fact that everyone in the street was up and watching in anticipation of some silence..

Jim Jones said :

chewy14 said :

Jim Jones said :

Stakeout the mailbox!!!

Nah booby trap it with explosives. That’ll learn em

Not enough police involvement. I don’t think that the OP will be happy until there’s around the clock surveillance of all mailboxes within a 50 km radius of the tampered mail.

I call ‘operation uselesswasteoftimeandmoney’

Or Operation SKYWHALE.

peebus, what location was this? I’m sure any of us that live nearby would be interested to know about this, even if the coppers aren’t.

Jim Jones said :

I call ‘operation uselesswasteoftimeandmoney’

Could we have an exhaustive list of the laws that aren’t worth even pretending to enforce?

ScienceRules said :

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

So… In that sense, If I saw a house being broken in to and because its not my house and I’m not the victim reporting the break in, they (Police ) will ignore it because I’m not the ‘specific’ victim?

Yep, Rawhide that’s totally what would happen because stolen letters scattered on the ground and housebreaking with offenders on the premesis are completely the same thing. You’ve got them bang to rights.

F#%king with peoples mail is a a pretty serious offence.

Tooks said :

Don’t like the service, put in a complaint. Although having police come out, collect mail from you, then return it to its owners, seems an inefficient use of resources.

They should go out, do that, then proceed to force the complainant to spend the rest of the day with them to observe the service they provide at any number of real police assistance urgencies. I was in Canberra on the weekend and as I drove around I thought what a gorgeous city. On a perfect weather day there, it could be mistaken as a fictional kingdom that wants for nothing. Seriously, someone explain how it works here. Madness.

Thank you for trying Peebus.
I know of a couple of times when police declined to attend for less than convincing reasons, which I won’t detail. I know they can’t be everywhere at once and they can’t immediately attend when they have something else of greater priority, but conveying the impression they’re not interested, and don’t keep records to monitor what’s going on out in the community and don’t liaise with other involved parties, eg Australia Post, that’s not sending the right message. They can’t literally be everywhere at once but they do need to make it seem like for all anyone knows they just might be.

What was it that convinced you that a crime had been committed here? A neighbours claims wouldn’t have been enough to rule out the owner of the mail may in fact be responsible for it. Maybe it was a paper mache mixture gone wrong? I can happily forward on some of my mail if it will ease the grief and anguish. I have no need for it as I stopped getting snail mail when Australia Post became a business instead of a service. They ended up being a business with no service anyway.Soon enough they wont need to place such a harmful item in places where they know people can abuse the material. Anyway I would hate to see you with real neighbourhood crime. Madness.

chewy14 said :

Jim Jones said :

Stakeout the mailbox!!!

Nah booby trap it with explosives. That’ll learn em

Not enough police involvement. I don’t think that the OP will be happy until there’s around the clock surveillance of all mailboxes within a 50 km radius of the tampered mail.

I call ‘operation uselesswasteoftimeandmoney’

Jim Jones said :

Stakeout the mailbox!!!

Nah booby trap it with explosives. That’ll learn em

Stakeout the mailbox!!!

peebus said :

bundah said :

The plod do have a point ie. if you want your mail secured then a padlock is a cheap and efficient method of keeping it secure.That being said however should they be using tools to force open the letterboxes then plod should attend.

And if the posties don’t push the mail all the way into the box then even the best padlock is useless.

Agreed however if the posties are aware of the situation and aren’t able to push it all the way in then they need to be directed to leave a card instead so that mail can be picked up from the nearest PO.Failing that surveillance is the only other option.

bundah said :

The plod do have a point ie. if you want your mail secured then a padlock is a cheap and efficient method of keeping it secure.That being said however should they be using tools to force open the letterboxes then plod should attend.

And if the posties don’t push the mail all the way into the box then even the best padlock is useless.

The plod do have a point ie. if you want your mail secured then a padlock is a cheap and efficient method of keeping it secure.That being said however should they be using tools to force open the letterboxes then plod should attend.

Tooks said :

Btw, it isn’t stolen mail, it’s found property. The correct thing to do is drop it into the nearest police station where they will then contact the owner and establish if it was in fact stolen, at which point a theft will be dispatched and investigated.

I think the fact that there were torn open envelopes with missing contents is a give away.

I also didn’t want a police call out, I simply wanted them to be aware that there has been 3+ cases of it. If they want to do something about it that would be nice, lest they just take a note that it’s been happening.

Tooks said :

Don’t like the service, put in a complaint. Although having police come out, collect mail from you, then return it to its owners, seems an inefficient use of resources.

You’re right. They’d better more effective booking speeding motorists. After all, that’s the only offense that matters in the ACT. Right?

Btw, it isn’t stolen mail, it’s found property. The correct thing to do is drop it into the nearest police station where they will then contact the owner and establish if it was in fact stolen, at which point a theft will be dispatched and investigated.

Aeek said :

This methodolagy will really cut down on murders. Were you the person who was murdered? No = Not interested!

Canberra Policing “Managing Crime by ignoring it”.

Hence the nearly full jail.

Don’t like the service, put in a complaint. Although having police come out, collect mail from you, then return it to its owners, seems an inefficient use of resources.

That attitude makes reporting a murder a problem.

Me: I’d like to report a murder.
Plod: Are you the victim?
Me: No.
Plod: I’m sorry, I can’t take your report.
Me: OK – would you at least like to know how I did it?

Maybe you should try reporting it to Australia Post. They might then be able to make a report to the Police themselves.

This methodolagy will really cut down on murders. Were you the person who was murdered? No = Not interested!

Canberra Policing “Managing Crime by ignoring it”.

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

So… In that sense, If I saw a house being broken in to and because its not my house and I’m not the victim reporting the break in, they (Police ) will ignore it because I’m not the ‘specific’ victim?

Yep, Rawhide that’s totally what would happen because stolen letters scattered on the ground and housebreaking with offenders on the premesis are completely the same thing. You’ve got them bang to rights.

Yeah I had the same sort of experience a few years ago when I was working in a job that occasionally involved contacting the police. The amusing thing is that the times I’d dealt with the state police in NSW, whether Queanbeyan or Western Sydney, the attitude was completely different.

So… In that sense, If I saw a house being broken in to and because its not my house and I’m not the victim reporting the break in, they (Police ) will ignore it because I’m not the ‘specific’ victim?