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Let's work togetherThe Aucklander By Jared Boreham
Christian Penrice locks a chain around his motorbike, then closes the garage, locks the door and chains that closed, too. He then parks his truck hard up against the garage door and chains up the truck. This Beach Haven builder is all too familiar with property crime and thinks that a police campaign urging people in his area to set up neighbourhood support groups is overdue. The first time he was robbed, Mr Penrice came home to find his motorbike had been stolen. "We had a car parked in front of the garage and the passenger door had been smashed in, then they let the handbrake off, wheeled it away and then forced their way into the garage and removed the motorcycle." The thieves returned a few months later, but Mr Penrice makes light of being targeted again. "It was a bit more minor that time. They got into the repaired door and took a chainsaw, a dropsaw and a few builders' tools." North Shore police have distributed pamphlets in Beach Haven streets warning that property crime is expected to increase in the area in the next two months. They are encouraging people to join or form neighbourhood support groups to combat the predicted rise. Senior Sergeant Kevin Brennan says there is a considerable reduction in property crime where neighbourhood support groups are active. "It's that kind of 'know your neighbour concept'," he says. "If you do not know your neighbour and there is someone on their property, how do you know if they are a stranger or not?" Mr Brennan says neighbours who know the people in their communities, and share information about what they are doing become "capable guardians". "They are the ones who notice what is happening around an area," he says. "They know they are seeing people they do not know in the street and are, therefore, more vigilant. People who commit property crime do not want to get caught so when they are seeing a neighbour look at them they are thinking twice about about burgling a house or breaking into a car." Mr Penrice says he and his wife know a few of the neighbours very well but do not know a lot of the people in his area. "We wave to people occasionally but you're in close vicinity and you do not know people around you. I think the neighbourhood support groups are definitely worth a look at." Mr Brennan says that when groups were first set up in Beach Haven there was no management body linking them. "They were working in isolation and not getting information from the police," he says. Now, support groups liaise with a manager at North Shore Policing Centre and information is shared. Neighbourhood Support North Shore manager John Stewart says many support groups have been set up then lose their effectiveness over time. "Because they were set up a long time ago, a lot of the neighbourhood support groups are not as accurate as they should be." He says neighbourhoods are "reactive rather than proactive". "The majority of applications to set up a support group are because someone has had a burglary instead of setting up beforehand and maybe prevent that incident. Generally, in that area, there is a spike at this time of the year so we try to do a proactive event to try to prevent it or minimise it as much as possible." Why crime might riseAny combination of the following factors might lead police to predict an increase in crimes for an area:
Source: http://www.theaucklander.co.nz/local/news/lets-work-together/3917200/ |
