Page 3587 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 2005
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show that Canberrans are continuing to benefit from a safe community. Contrary to the protestations we heard from opposition members, the people of Canberra feel safe.
Figures from AC Nielson show that the ACT performs consistently well against other jurisdictions when it comes to the community’s perception of safety. This is despite Mr Pratt’s best efforts to scare our community into thinking we are not safe in our beds. The ACT police are a community police. They work to create a safer and more secure ACT through involving the community in crime reduction and prevention.
Community policing is a collaborative effort between the police and the community that identifies problems of crime and disorder and involves all elements of the community in the search for solutions to these problems. It is founded on close, mutually beneficial ties between the police and community members. Community policing offers a way for law enforcement to help re-energise our communities. Developing strong, self-sufficient communities is an essential step in creating an atmosphere in which crime can be prevented.
This partnership with the community is particularly important for the intelligence-led approach to crime that is being adopted by ACT Policing. For intelligence-led policing to work, the police need to have a very good relationship with the community, where members of the public are encouraged to call Crime Stoppers or ACT Policing to report incidents that they have witnessed or concerns they have. The police then gather a body of evidence to apprehend someone or stop a certain crime from occurring.
This approach has been very successful. We have seen a number of operations by the police that, with community help, have been successful in heightening the safety of our city. Under the auspices of Operation Halite, ACT Policing has developed and coordinates the partnership crime group, a group of ACT government and business representatives formed to address volume crime issues in the ACT. The group meets on a monthly basis to discuss issues of concern and to formulate responses. The group is an integral part of Operation Halite, sharing information and intelligence as well as resources for specific operations.
The partnership crime group consists of representatives from Operation Halite, ACT Policing territory investigations group and about 13 other organisations and departments across Canberra. ACT Policing is also working in close cooperation with the Real Estate Institute to educate property managers in the identification of and responses to clandestine laboratories and hydroponic cultivation of cannabis in rental properties.
On 4 April 2005 ACT Policing established Operation Globin to target offences such as burnouts and street racing. In this initiative the ACT Policing traffic team is working in collaboration with district patrols to collect intelligence on offenders and provide a unified response to identified issues. An important element of Operation Globin is community assistance. ACT Policing advises that since commencement of the operation, 52 vehicles have been seized under the Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Act 1999.
The police have been targeting unsafe driving practices, including the use of mobile phones when driving. Traffic enforcement and community safety on our roads is the number one priority for ACT Policing resources at this time. Dedicated resources from
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