Steve

I'm not sure if the local crime rate has changed in recent months but the amount of antisocial behaviour in our street (Baillie Av, East Victoria Park) has continued to escalate. With winter fast approaching my wife’s fears of walking home from the bus stop, to our house after dark is returning. The amount of drunks and under age children roaming the streets late into the night does not appear to be subsiding. In talking to my surrounding neighbours the tendency to report any activity is dwindling, because they feel there is no point as nothing can or will be done. The antisocial behaviour in the Edward Millen Reserve continues with groups of Aboriginals swearing, drinking and fighting within close proximity to the children’s playground. This is going on around us while we are hearing reports from the media that the number of police cars is being reduced. As law abiding resident this is disheartening. I am not sure what the answers to these problems are. My wife and I feel that there will be no change in the future and if we wish to raise a family in a safer environment, we are left with no option but to move. This is unfortunate because without the crime / criminal element, East Victoria Park is a lovely area to reside.

Adrian

We live not far from Oats St Station on the Carlisle side and we have noticed an increase in unruly adolescent behaviour over the summer. It is not uncommon for gangs of youths to roam around the streets at night (10.00am to 3.00am). First they travel towards the station in large groups and then we see and hear them shouting, abusing, damaging property, swearing, whistling and causing disturbances in the area. The morning shows the results of their handy work, with fences damaged, public change room buildings in the Park trashed, empty beer bottles smashed and building materials from building sites thrown around the roads. We live in fear of Thursdays and the weekends when this activity is at its worst. It is not uncommon to be woken up at 2am in the morning with a group of youths amassed outside of our house shouting and abusing each other. We hide inside peeking through the slits of our venetian blinds and hope that they will move on without endangering us or our property. We call the Police, and to their credit they generally pass by within 20 mins. However, by then the incident is over with the unruly behaviour moving on to another unsuspecting residents front lawn, leaving broken bottles and damage in their wake.
My wife now struggles to sleep at night and has developed a high anxiety disorder with an OCD of locking and checking the locks several times before going to bed. We feel trapped by these marauding street urchins of the night. Law and Order appears to be lost as they move like shadows - always evading the police cars as they pass by in their haste to get to the next disturbance call.
What is being done about this. Police cut backs are not the answer. My vote will be for the politicians that can reverse the diminishing social safety standards. I am sick of filling out questionaires and reading politicians speeches. What is being done to address, stop and reverse this outrageous increase in crime. These offenders need to be held responsible for their actions and face the consequences of the law.

Hi Steve,

How about talking to your state Liberal party colleges, and getting police numbers increased in East Victoria Park? You say you are for increasing crime prevention and safety for East Vic Park, but the reality is that this is a state issue, not a federal one, and it is the state liberal government which is reducing the police budget, not the Gillard government.

Chris.

Every Thursday, Friday and some Saturday nights we have groups of up to 20 people drinking and generally being very antisocial in the street front of our house (Hubert street near to Somerset drive). We are constantly in fear and kept up until the early hours of the morning. To be honest I'm not sure how to approach this. They are generally quite aggressive and apart from the noise the often pull our fence posts off. They haven't broken in, yet, but I've chased a few out of the garden. What can I do? Can I call the police in these circumstances? It isn't isolated times it is literally every Thursday and Friday.
On a few occassions when police patrol patrol cars have come (you can hear the siren a mile off) they are long gone before they arrive. Then they wait 20 minutes and come back.
I occasionly need to travel with my job and I have so far been avoidiing it as my partner is too scared to stay in the house on her own. So I'm really interested in any suggestions you may have.

I probably should have read Peter Charles's post before writing mine. It summed up our predicament absolutly to the letter.
Sorry to hear that other decent residents are under seige in their own homes. I guess the next evolution is that people start leaving the suburb for safer areas and the place becomes a slum.

Yesterday I was just explanning my personal experience, which is all well and good, but we need to work on finding a solution. Extra policing may seem like the answer but it is like taking pain killers for a broken bone. We need to fix the break, not just a quick fix for the symptom.
The root cause of the problem is that these teens/young adults have nowhere to go and nothing to do. They are young and they need to let off some steam and have some fun sometimes. I doubt it is their intention to terrorise people and letting ourselves judge them on this behaviour, further enforces their negative social standing. Leading to even less regard and a worsened attitude.
They need a center (hey or two) where they can party until the early hours of the morning. One that is run by them for them, without putting up barriers and rules to exclude anyone. It should be unpolicied, but the police will know where most people are at the end of the night, effectively making the policing more efficient. I'm saying give them a party and let them do whatever they want to do inside. Just don't let it spill outside.They do need to know that such a place is a privelidge and it can be taken away if they continue their previous behaviour afterwards. They need time to adjust to a new environment and we need to respect their rights and not start to infringe on this sanctuary once the dust settles or it just won't work.

This will obviously need investment and it will be difficult to find somewhere to run such an event, but surely it is worth it? What if in the day this place could be used to offer them advice on a range of things, from drug addiction to sexual health and maybe even career advice. Flyers could be passively available at the parties. This would make it more of social rehabillitation effort. Would this make it more of a viable propersition?

Whatever is done, I hope they are not further demonised at this young and impressionable age. Lets not turn rowdy kids into future crims.

Steve,

As a middle income earner, I support the economic policies the liberal party is promoting. I would even go as far to say that I support the majority of domestic policies being discussed.

However a far as foreign policies go, I really think the liberal parties current policies are in line with the Howard era that went a long way to alienate minority groups within the community and increase the level of risk with our south eastern pacific neighbours.

For the moment, the latter issue discussed above is highest on my priority list.

Kind Regards,

Jason

I am just living next to Home west which operates openly as East Victoria Park Illegal Drug store along Jarrah road. I have see young parent pushing stroller with their few months old baby to buy drugs. I have been to city of Victoria Park and Kensington police station numerous of times . Guess what they reply "we will try our best but there is nothing we can do." The police told me that they need some time to observe the drug dealing. I am seeing 20 -30 people knocking on the door almost everyday. For the last three years nothing have change. Shame on the police taking almost three years. Come on Steve personal safety is the basic, you will win me vote if you can come with a good solution to keep the neighbourhood safe and drug free. Tell us your plan. No big economic plan is good if the basic safety is not met!

We have been living in East Victoria Park for a little under a year now. We have been robbed 4 times during that period. The first time I found the culprits, two mid teen Aboriginal boys high on methylated spirits. However they were faster than me and managed to dump our stuff god knows where before I caught one of them. Nothing has been done. The neighbours next to me also reported two boys of the same description caught on their surveillance trying to break in a couple months before. Nothing has been done. Across the road is a group of apartments that have also had break in a robberies from two boys of the same description, as well as others, all being aboriginal, just waltzing into the building stealing TV's, and even going through one persons draws while they were asleep in the same room. Nothing has been done. The last 3 times that we have been robbed were while we weren't home, and then one in the morning while we were sleeping. Across the road (next to the apartments) also got robbed a couple months ago, they entered the house, with the alarm going and the womens elderly mother still inside, yet NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE!
A couple days ago our dogs barked visciously at some boys walking past our property, mind you that is an uncommon occurance for them to bark visciously, so i ran out to see who it might be, two aboriginal boys, I video'd them walking down our street, they peered into the front yard of the house a couple of blocks down checking out the equipment that is there, but i spooked them. So they walked on then sat down. I didn't leave, so after 10 mins they walked on slowly and stopped again. They got the picture that i wasn't going to leave so they left. I went home, got the car and followed them to see where they were going, randomly a car picked them up and sped off and we lost them. We kept driving around to find that the car was parked about two houses down from where they were picked up. We got the numberplate and the address. It also looked like drug dealings were happening there too (we lived across the road from homes west aboriginal drug dealers in belmont so we too are familiar with the scence). Then one of the boys hopped into the drivers seat (mind you, both looked not a day older than 14). They sat there for a while so we left as i had work to go to. incidently i drove past their place a couple days later on my way to the shops and the same car but different numberplates was in the driveway :|
We are civilians, yet we seem to be doing more investigating than the police. At least in belmont we always saw the eyes on the street car driving around, nothing is seen where we live. And as usual NOTHING IS EVER DONE.
What the hell are police getting paid for!?
that equates to at least 9 thefts in less than one year within the space of 4 neighbouring houses. yet NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE! (the additional one is a few streets down two aboriginals broke into a couples home while they were asleep and they caught them, rang the police and the police took them away, only to release them a couple of hours later).
Alarm systems, video systems, nothing seems to work. The police have been given images of people but they don't do anything with them. Yet if civilians were to take things into their own hands they would surely be charged.

Why are these people, in particular Aboriginals, above the law?

Well said Sarah, why are aboriginals above the law?

We've been living in St James for 4 years, and in that time have been robbed 3 times by aboriginals. Each time they've broken in at night whilst we have been home and don't seem to care whether or not they are caught. Every house in our street has been done over at least once, and we've had enough. Whilst the location is very convenient, I have young children and its simply too risky for me to live in St James/East Vic Park any more so we're selling up and moving to a better location. I'm not racist but you can be sure that the main factor in choosing our next suburb will be the number of aboriginals in that area.

We live in a virtual prison where every door has to be deadlocked at night, every outside light left on and the alarm armed. My kids can't leave their room in the morning until we disable the alarm. The police do a great job with the limited resources that they have, but are clearly outnumbered.

We've been told that a gang has recently moved into the area and the police are attending 50 burglaries a week. Something has to be done ! As for us, we won't be hanging around long enough to find out.

I am a Labour voter, but I believe good policy is good policy, regardless of who comes out with it.

Steve was nice enough to personally write to me when I aired my disgust over the lax treatment of yet another graffiti offender covered in the West Australian recently.

Knowing that he is a resident in the area he works for to me is a big plus.

I am hoping to meet with him at some point, perhaps with some friends, to openly discuss this issue in a group.

I live in East Cannington and see the way places like Carousel Shopping Centre and the various train stations along the line turn into war-zones after dark.

I have thought a lot about what can be done, but to be honest there are a number of variables here, and unfortunately if any one of them is not handled adequately, it negates the work done in the other areas.

I ask a simple question: "How many of these offenders are repeat offenders?" Its a valid question because I believe the answers stem from this.
Unlike many people who have posted on this forum thus far, I do not believe the Police are to blame. Their effectiveness is nullified the moment the judiciary lacks the courage to deal with the offenders harshly the first time.

See, I dont believe there is such a thing as 'petty' crime, Nor for that matter, 'major' crime. There is only CRIME, and its insensitive to think that somebody getting their family heirloon stolen is less important than a bank being robbed.

One look at everyones situation above tells me that 99% of their issues are stemming from what the police and judiciary would call 'petty' crime. Break-ins, graffiti, vandalism - The very building blocks of later criminal behavior are being ignored by those in power, or dismissed as "too big a problem" Do they not see that this activity leads to the larger crimes later in life?

I understand some people are desperate financially, bored, alienated, depressed... But there is right and there is wrong and Im fairly certain that a would-be offender knows the risks that faces him or her, should they decide to commit a crime. The problem is, when they are caught and these punishments are NOT handed down, what dis-incentive is there to commit another crime?

Dont be fooled. These 'petty-crime' candidates are not necessarily coming from broken/poor homes, and from what Ive been told, some of them even act on behalf of older and more experienced crime syndicates.

The key I believe is in the age of the offenders - young kids are impressionable. How you leave the right impression on them would have to vary, but we need to start getting tougher on the 'smaller' crimes. These kids either have to see the benefit of staying on the path, and if not, sincerely fear stepping off it.

Any politician ready to get up and take a stand (partiularly at our court system) will get my full support and vote.

Enough is enough.

Since my last post on October 27, a house in our street has been broken into 6 times by gangs of aboriginals. In the most recent incident, they rocked up at 6:30pm on a Sunday night and literally "assulted" the house in full view of the street, kicking down the front door. The cops are really frustrated that the magistrates keep letting them go when they're finally caught. The local servo lets the aboriginals shoplift (Shell policy) because its too risky to stop them, and this results in them thinking that they are above the law. I'm sick of East Vic Park/St James - its a war zone and a disgrace to any semi-civilised society.

Its been a year since I last posted a comment on this website.
Unfortunately, nothiing has really changed since then as the unruly behaviour in Carlisle is still ongoing. In the last year the fence has continued to be damaged, bottles have been smashed on the pavements, people have urinated outside my door and my car has been broken into. Just recently on Saturday morning, 5th June 2011 I saw three cars broken into with smashed side windows from the previous nights criminal activity. I felt sorry for those people who had their property violated, possessions stolen and repair costs to meet.
This Crime Spike comment column was a good innovation created 2 years ago in April 2009, but one has to ask what has been done to address the issues since then.
I call on our local member; Steve Irons to inform us on what has been done or what is being formulated to remedy this unacceptable crime problem in our suburb. We need to be comforted that our member is actively campaigning and instigating crime prevention measures on our behalf.

Dear All who have posted on this site.
it is welcoming to hear your experiences, not from a positive viewpoint but to the point that others are experiencing similar stress we too have in the City of South Perth. Largely our issues are with Aboriginal State housing tenants who in normal circumstances would have no chance in hell in affording to living in our suburbs, yet abuse their priveledge excessively and cause untoll stress in the suburbs they have been placed with little consequence. The trouble i see is that tenants with bad history are not screened in the state housing allocation and can go on terrorising their suburb without it affecting their placement into the suburb in the first place -go figure that one !! Currently the Dept of Housing is govenered by the Residential Tenancy Act which makes no provisons for tenants behaviour in the immediate suburb they have been placed in, thus an open book for these types to misbehave in the placed suburb without any tenancy consequence. Whilst i must say there are bad non-aboriginal state housing tenants, the percentage certainly swell with issues when aboriginal tenants are involved. Minister Buswell is doing excellent work on the issue - the first Minister to make real inroads - i just hope in the end there is real change for everyones benefit. Otherwise like you all, we too will be moving to another electorate where state housing numbers are low or non existant. I agree the police are doing a great job and are hampered with low resources and a pathetic judiciary system to support them. We need Steve to lobby for realistic penalties for our core crimes affecting our livelihood. Also as is apparent the welfare system which provides many with subsidised housing, income etc... is failing badly and is the precursor to the majority of this mess.
Imagine if an individual had to work to put a roof over his head or food on his plate, i am sure they would become more socially responsible with their overall actions. Personally i for one living in Perth seem disadvantaged with the quality of life i endure for the doing the right thing in working hard and paying my taxes.

Hi,

I have lived in Carlisle, St James and now East Victoria Park for sometime now and have had numerous burglary attempts and sometime ago and home invasion.

I think the epidemic facing our suburbs and perhaps Perth/Australia in general is a lack of respect. I have no doubt this is caused by a number of deep social issues but when youths have no respect for others, the law and indeed themselves, then to be honest, I cannot see things getting better. Perhaps we need to reset and look at what these underlying causes are.

For myself I have invested largely in Home Surveillance and Security. I have caught people attempting to break into our house and left in the hands of the police, but really, there is not much they can do. I can see the day when we are living compounds like those of Johannesburg, weapons at the ready.

This is not the place I grew up in, and the trend is quite upsetting.

So what do you do when the Police say there stuffed and cant help , You move interstate !!!!!. Im Perth born but have had enough of indigenous crime So many break-ins ,so many of my hard earned things ie car & motor bikes stolen ...The police do not want to get involved ..and I quote " Are the black fellas .....well its a waste of police resources."
# Ex Girlfriend assaulted with a beer bottle at 10:00 in the morning while having tyres put on her car ..police reluctantly took the report.
# Me pelted with glass,rocks and other house hold items from a kerb side clean up. Police would not take a report..
# chairs thrown through a up stairs warehouse window the double glass enter doors smashed , all in broad daylight opposite several shops . we gave chase
corned them ,called the ploice and 2hr later they call back saying that they had to have crib (lunch ) and a shift change ...I GIVE UP ...

In my personal experience, as the son of a man assaulted by an aboriginal man whose case was acquitted in court, I can say that there needs to be a serious review of the police conduct.

I like many here blamed the courts, but when this event came into my life and I saw the way in which the police doctored the witness statements beyond recognition, inflaming the circumstances and adding sensational (and quite racist) drama of "wild eyed black men" (it was like something out of a joseph conrad novella) in a desperate attempt to throw the book at the accused who they obviously had it in for, the court didn't have any choice but to throw the case out because it was simply rediculous.

Of course my father should not of approved this doctored statement but the police officers told him stories about the aboriginal being a repeat offender who walks out of court time and time again, and a lot of pressure was put on him to do anything to help a conviction.

I can only speak from this single case, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is common practice in the WAPOL and would explain a lot about the public perception of a slap on the wrist court system. You all appreciate the inability of our police force to be effective, I don't get why you're all so willing to trust that they're doing their job properly.

Can I suggest buy a shotgun. I did and am looking forward to the next time my home is invaded when I am in it. Calling the police will not be my first action. I have tried that in the paste and have received no assistance. With two young children in the house be damned if I am going to let anyone near them, black or white. If the system won't help me, I'm going to help myself. Victim no more!

Steve

Has a consideration been given by East Victoria Park to conducting a community patrol such as the City of Belmont and other councils in Perth?

All of the above,

Thank you for all your comments.
I was applying am applying to rent a property 19 Baillie Avenue (beautiful house) however if the crime rate is still high I will unfortunately withdraw it.

I hope that something is done to improve your situation as the houses on your street are great and it would be a nice place to live.

Dear all

I am extremely concerned to hear about the level of distress that is being experienced by our community. People who are at fear to leave their homes and those young people whose energies are not being channelled into positive activities.

I do need to point out that no matter how frustrated we are the threats of violence and use of guns means that we are in an unwinnable situation. Who wants to kill someone else in order to work out a problem? That is a sure fire way to ensure you end up with no quality of life to speak of.

What I would like to see are programs set up for these young people to ensure that they are receiving appropriate educational activities (this is the evidence based most effective way of preventing juvenile justice). Prevention is better than cure. If this type of approach is not adopted we will spend all of our time and money trying to resolve crime at the most difficult part of the spectrum.

Kate,

An armed society is a polite society.

Simple fact; If my home is broken into, said intruder will forfeit their life. If that intruder decides to be a productive menber of society, then they have nothing to fear from me.

I don't have a gun. I don't want one, as it will be a sure thing that my house will be robbed for my guns, so its a pointless exercise. But i do have extensive experience in fighting wars on several continents, against foes who are the stuff of nightmares.

We have moved to another suburb now. We have lived in the area for a year now and have not had a single incident. It’s quiet, safe and free of out of control aboriginals. I feel sorry for the people who can not afford to move and have to continue living in the war zone.