Time to admit growing Canberra has a crime problem and the thin blue line is stretched to the limit

Catching crims cost money in court costs and jailing of crims. It easier to raise revenue by catching the average Joe speeding

Let’s have a look at Canberra shall we. We have an undisciplined welfare problem in this city, with soft public housing policies helping attract more “marginalised” people to the ACT. Where’s there’s passive, non-aspirational welfare there’s poverty and where there’s poverty, there’s crime. Our poorly managed public housing population continues to be located in most parts of the Territory, thus placing a potential crime problem quite close to most of us.

You’re quite right to point to the need for more “cops on the beat” but there’s two problems. First, ACT Policing is likely to join a host of normally high municipal and other priorities that face severe funding constraints, all in the name of funding Light Rail, a major project without any discernible business plan and thus highly likely to be a significant loss maker. Second, even when our highly stretched police bring the villains to justice, they’re likely to receive little more than a slap on the wrist from our human rights-obsessed court system.

When ideology supplants everything else, you’re highly unlikely to get good government. It was obvious at the 2016 ACT Election that this increasingly was the situation with our Territory government, but we returned them anyway. Therefore, we only have ourselves to blame. Until Canberrans grow up politically, there’s little point moaning about it.

Anybody who has visited Sydney (or even Queanbeyan) would know that the police presence in Canberra is poor – nay almost invisible – by comparison. Police are almost everywhere in NSW, walking or driving through Canberra you would be forgiven for thinking that we have a police force at all.

I’m not saying that we should saturate the streets with police officers, but a more visible and upfront presence is surely needed. I think the last time I was stopped for an RBT was in 2012 whereas whenever I visit Sydney I get one all the time.

I know many people think that we don’t have a crime problem in Canberra and we don’t need the level of policing that Sydney does, but that is merely false bravado and it is clear that as the population expands we need a more high profile and conspicuous police presence on the streets of this city.

So we have a jurisdiction smaller in population than some regions in the States and ecpect it to be able to provide state type services effectively. Policing, like health and education will never be efficient or effective when it is required to service such a relatively small population.

The policing function is complicated further, because the local yocals have no real control over how the delivery is organised and it seems the constabulary is comprised of members either more interested in being in another jurisdiction or they are being shoved towards the exit. The level of servicing one gets if needing to deal with them is more a function of who is assigned to the task than anything else. And remember, it is the police who also decide who will be their Minister, not the Chief Minstrel.

When we finally realise we, as a community, do not have the critical mass to deliver state type functions we can fibally move forward.